


The One with the Cat

by ravingrevolution



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe - High School, Familiars, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-21 18:32:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9561563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravingrevolution/pseuds/ravingrevolution
Summary: “You know this would be easier if I could figure out what the hell I even am,” Stiles retorted before he could stop himself.“We can discuss that, if you’d like,” Deaton said, as glacially calm as he always was.Stiles sighed, hearing the instruction behind the blandness.“A druid is a defender,” he recited, “a warlock’s adept at warring, a magician mimics, a wizard hordes wisdom, a mage is a maker, a sorcerer summons, a spark-”---Or, Stiles is a magical -something he's still trying to figure out- but it's hard to be a druid's apprentice, act normal despite his epic crush on Derek Hale, and not let his tenuous control of his abilities out him at every turn.Which is about when a magical cat suddenly decides he's Stiles' familiar. Because of course that's what he needs in his life.





	1. Chemistry

The hottest guy at Beacon Hills High was in Stiles’ room.  _ The  _ hottest guy,  _ Derek Hale _ , was sitting there. _ In Stiles’ room _ .  _ With  _ Stiles, and it was  _ really hard _ to reconcile that particular notion with reality. 

Of course Stiles knew  _ why  _ Derek was there; they had a chemistry project to work on and, according to Derek, the other Hales were too rambunctious for the two of them to get any work done over at his house. Stiles still didn’t know why he had volunteered to host, other than the fact that Derek had been in his bedroom many a time in his fantasies and Stiles may or may not have wanted to see how that compared to reality. 

For the record, Derek looked just as hot sitting with his back against the edge of Stiles’ bed as Stiles had always imagined.

Well, and they just so happened to be at Stiles’ house and not, say, at the next most logical place besides Derek’s house because Mrs. Eckles, the Beacon Hills Library’s head librarian, was  _ not  _ Stiles’ biggest fan. Though in his defense he’d been going through a dinosaur phase when he’d accidentally knocked over that book shelf. Also, he’d been seven at the time, so the grudge-holding had gotten a bit out of hand, really. Ten years was a long time to give someone the stink-eye and haunt their steps every time they walked into the building.

So there they were, sitting cross-legged on the floor of Stiles’ bedroom, pouring over their notes and textbooks while Stiles tried not to freak out over the fact that the Derek  _ freaking  _ Hale actually knew he existed and where he lived and seemed to be less of a douche than his beefy physique and penchant for wearing leather jackets would suggest.

“I don’t see why we can’t make a model or something. Covalent bonds are a pretty visual thing, right?” Derek asked, tapping a long finger on a picture in his textbook.

Stiles started nodding, but then he heard the front door close and his dad called out his awful legal name, which was just kind of terrible.

“Shit, hold on,” he said, trying to ignore the strange look Derek was giving him as he scrambled to his door, which he’d left open because he hadn’t wanted to make things weird between them.

Well, weirder.

Stiles knew that just by virtue of being himself, he tended to weird-up situations pretty much by default.

“Yeah Dad, just studying,” he yelled.

“No unsupervised magic, I don’t want to have to buy another fire extinguisher,” his dad responded and it was pretty clear he didn’t know they had a guest.

Stiles’ ears were hot and probably bright red as he forced a laugh and responded in quick Polish, “I’m studying with someone from school and no you can’t interrogate him.”

Derek gave him an even stranger look, head tilted slightly to the side like one of those dogs on the internet.

Not that Stiles made a habit of watching cute dog videos or anything.

Or that he thought Derek was cute.

Okay, so those were both lies.

“Ah,” his dad replied with obvious interest, and Stiles knew just from that tone that things were just going to continue to get even more awkward. Especially when his footsteps began to ascend the staircase.

Stiles turned back to Derek and rolled his eyes. “Sorry in advance, he gets inordinately gleeful when we have company. And he was talking about that card game, you know, Magic the Gathering? Yeah, I used to have little tournaments and they’d get out of hand-”

“You must be a Hale,” his dad interrupted, clapping his hands on Stiles’ shoulders and pushing him firmly into his room toward where Derek was still sitting on the floor.

“Yes, sir,” Derek said, his confused face kind of adorable as he looked back and forth between Stiles and his dad.

“Dad, this is Derek Hale, Derek, this is Sheriff Stilinski. Okay, you’ve met, time for us to study and for you to lock up your service gun and eat a healthy snack before I get started on dinner in a couple of hours. There are some carrot sticks and fresh hummus in the fridge.”

His dad was not so easily dissuaded, though. He just pressed down on Stiles’ shoulders until Stiles had no choice but to sink down onto the floor. All the giving Derek an assessing look.

“So, Derek, how is it you know my son?” he asked with a smile.

Unfortunately for Derek, it was his  _ interrogation  _ smile. The one he used on perps that seemed like they might try to weasel their way out of the charges being filed against them.

Things were undoubtedly going to go downhill from there. Stiles didn’t even need to tap into his divination skills to know  _ that _ . He barely resisted the urge to cover his face with both hands and offer up a prayer to the gods to deliver him from his father’s unsubtle scheming.

Not that any of his previous prayers on that subject had ever been answered.

But still.

Derek shifted his seat a bit, but didn’t seem entirely uncomfortable despite being questioned by the lead law enforcement authority of Beacon county.

Stiles kind of pitied him, actually, since he clearly had no idea how persistent the sheriff could be when he was in that kind of a mood.

“We, uh, we have chemistry together, sir.” Derek said, then blushed as if he heard the innuendo as clearly as Stiles and his grinning father. “I mean, we have a project together in chemistry class,” he clarified, impressive brows furrowing, but he didn’t seem all that upset. Just mildly embarrassed, really.

Stiles’ dad looked positively  _ gleeful _ .

“I’m going to make you eat steamed cabbage and beets for a week if you don’t stop it,” Stiles said in Polish, but it barely decreased the breadth of his dad’s smile.

“Say, son, did you run your laps yet?” he replied in English because sometimes he was an ass and was clearly refusing to acknowledge Stiles’ attempts to salvage the conversational tailspin they had going on. He was also giving Stiles’ desk a significant look, which Stiles took to mean something on it was levitating or glowing or possibly both.

And if that was the case then Stiles was very much in need of expending a little of his excess energy or else they risked another incident that required the use of a fire extinguisher, which they had just had to replace the previous month. Along with a cabinet door or two in the kitchen. Because even though Stiles largely had a handle on the more destructive manifestations of his magic, there was bound to be an incident or two. Deaton helped him a lot with that, but accidents happened. Especially when Stiles was keyed up. 

Not that being around Derek made his heart race or anything.

_ Haha _ .

Deaton had  _ also  _ told Stiles that he was supposed to run on the days they didn't have appointments, regardless of whether or not he had an insanely attractive classmate sitting within touching distance in his bedroom and yeah, Stiles needed to  _ go outside _ before he accidentally caused something in the room to spontaneously combust.

Again.

“Ugh, no I didn’t run yet. Fine. Sorry Derek,” he said, turning back to his confused-looking classmate. And yep, over Derek’s shoulder Stiles could see that a pair of his superhero figurines appeared to be pressed together on top of his mousepad, almost like they were kissing or maybe even acting out something a bit more risque than that.

So yeah, running it was. 

He double-blinked and the figurines immediately stopped humping each other as the accidental magic that had animated them dissipated. 

Stiles hazarded a final glance at Derek, who was still watching the sheriff with a slightly furrowed brow, but Stiles knew better than to dawdle for too long. 

“I’ll be back in a few minutes because my tyrannical father makes me run laps around the outside of the house everyday after school," he explained. Because if he was going to be humiliated in front of his crush, he might as well eliminate any possibility of the guy finding him attractive in any way.

To his father he muttered an unflattering accusation in Polish, then got up and ran out the door and down the hall, jumping the last four stairs with a jarring thud before he could hear his dad’s inevitable retort.

Ten breathless laps later he reentered the house to find Derek and the sheriff sitting at the kitchen table smiling and chatting over a mostly empty platter of cheese and crackers.

“Hey, I told you hummus and carrots,” Stiles sighed, going to the fridge to get out the healthier snack option, for himself if no one else. The sheriff had definitely earned himself a bowl of broccoli and tofu over brown rice for dinner. He just didn’t know it, yet.

“What happened to you running every day after school like you were instructed?” his dad replied easily, settling back in his chair, arms crossed.

Stiles shook his head as he got a glass of water at the sink. “This isn’t some weird boot camp,” he explained to Derek, who was looking back and forth between the two of them with that same confused expression from earlier. It was also the look he got when something in class didn’t seem to add up for him. 

And that might have been why he’d asked Stiles to be his partner on their assignment, actually. It was pretty well known that even though Mr. Harris wasn’t his biggest fan, Stiles got excellent grades in chemistry class. Derek, on the other hand, seemed to struggle a bit. 

Though to be fair he was super talented at all of the athletic-type stuff Beacon Hills High had to offer while Stiles just kind of flailed his way through life as he attempted to stay under the radar as much as humanly possible. But since  _ Derek Hale _ , of all people, had apparently noticed his aptitude for the whole chemistry thing, he’d kind of failed.

And succeeded?

Stiles still wasn’t quite sure about that.

Stiles brought the healthier snack to the table and sat across from Derek. “Running helps with my ADHD,” he said, which was kind of true and he didn’t even feel embarrassed about that. He was pretty sure his condition was common knowledge, anyway, so he didn’t really mind bringing it up in casual conversation. Also, it served as a pretty reasonable excuse for some of his more bizarre behaviors, magically manifested or not.

Derek nodded thoughtfully. “My mom makes me run through the preserve sometimes when I piss her off,” he admitted and that was really one of the first personal anecdotes he’d ever shared with Stiles, besides his house being a place of general chaos. 

Other than talking about chemistry they’d never interacted before despite having gone to school together for the past two or so years. Though that was probably due more to Derek’s circle of friends than anything else. He was always hanging out with the likes of Lydia, Danny, and Jackson, who were all stratospherically more popular than Stiles and his best buddy Scott.

“She sounds like kind of a hardass,” Stiles replied with a smile which Derek returned a bit sheepishly.

“Well, that’s my cue,” his dad said, standing up from the table. He was still wearing his gun, along with the rest of his uniform, but Stiles gave the former a dirty look.

“No guns accessible in the house,” he reminded his father, pointing a hummus-covered carrot stick at him, but the sheriff just waved a hand dismissively.

“I’ll let you get back to your date,” he replied in Polish. “He’s cute, try not to set anything on fire while he’s here.” 

And yeah, Stiles’ subsequent coughing fit as he choked on a mouthful of water was no surprise at all.

 

\--------------

 

“Your dad seems nice,” Derek said as they settled back on the floor of Stiles’ room, his door pointedly shut in a probably vain attempt to keep his meddling father from interrupting them.

Again.

“Yeah, he’s kind of nice, but also kind of a jerk,” Stiles replied. 

Which, to be fair, Stiles could be as well.

Derek nodded, then bit his lip for a second before looking up at Stiles through his stupidly thick eyelashes. It was definitely a practiced look, if Stiles had ever seen one. And despite knowing that it felt like his heart gave a funny little stutter because no one should be able to pull off such an adorable expression. Especially not a guy already as devastatingly attractive as Derek Hale.

He did, though, and Stiles could feel his skin tighten with a pleasant, tingling sensation. Almost like when he used his magic.

“Were you and your dad speaking Polish to each other?” Derek asked, his voice surprisingly soft.

The warm feeling Stiles had felt was abruptly replaced by a wash of iciness that cascaded down his scalp and spine.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to think of a reasonable explanation for Derek being able to identify the language, but he wasn’t coming up with anything that made a huge amount of sense. 

“Um, you know that was Polish?” he settled on, voice a bit higher-pitched than normal.

The sheepish look on Derek’s face was almost enough for Stiles to start actively freaking out, but then Derek just shrugged and glanced down at his hands. 

“My uncle and dad are kind of obsessed with languages. When I was homeschooled they used to play all kinds of games and make us-”

The  _ us _ being Derek’s siblings and cousins, Stiles assumed.

“-guess what they were saying and where the language originated. I always liked the slavic tongues.”

None of that was anything Stiles had known about him, actually. The Hales were a bit of a hot topic, gossip-wise, but despite Derek’s older sister Laura having graduated the previous year and his younger sister Cora just having begun high school, no one really knew all that much about them. 

Also, Stiles was maybe a little bit infatuated with Derek Hale.

Well, even more than he had been.

But then the implications of the whole  _ Polish _ thing kind of made his throat go dry with sudden discomfort because he really didn’t like the thought of  _ anyone  _ being able eavesdrop on the private conversations he and his dad had, sometimes about  _ very secret magic things _ that absolutely no one else was supposed to know about. 

And sometimes those conversations just so happened to take place in public settings like the grocery store or when they went out to eat during his dad’s late shifts because the sheriff was pretty busy and Stiles spent a lot of time with Deaton trying to figure out the whole magic thing, so the times when they could actually have real conversations were few and far between.

“I mean, yeah. But um, you don’t actually like  _ know  _ Polish though, do you?” Stiles asked, trying to make his face do something other than the rigor mortis smile he was sure he was rocking.

Derek glanced away and yeah, he was maybe about to lie? The tingle returned, his magic giving him a perception boost he didn’t exactly need, but didn’t fight all the same.

“Uh, no,” Derek mumbled, then gestured one broad hand toward their notes on the floor. “Do you want to get back to this? My sister’s going to come pick me up in half an hour.”

Stiles was officially alarmed and confused and embarrassed, but he still wasn’t completely sure about Derek’s potential linguistic skills, so he just shrugged away his worry. He knew himself well enough to be certain he’d obsess over the whole situation later, but as Derek had said, they didn’t have long to discuss their project, so they really had to focus.

“Sounds good,” Stiles replied with false cheer, “so you were talking about making a model?”


	2. Familiar

“I can’t see anything,” Stiles said, which he thought was a fairly reasonable thing to report since he was, in fact, blindfolded.

Also upside down, but that was slightly less troublesome, actually. As long as he didn’t pass out from a bloodrush before the test was complete he found that being upside down was actually the least of his concerns.

He could tell Deaton was somewhere off to one side of the examination room, futzing around with something that sounded like loose papers. He didn’t immediately respond to Stiles’ complaint, which was pretty much how things went between them, but the rustling stopped and then the room grew eerily quiet.

“You’re not concentrating,” Deaton said in his familiar, calm tone. "How can you expect to escape from an arachnid's trap, likely with her young quickly scrambling up the walls as they close in to consume you, if you're unable to concentrate under our much safer, controlled conditions?" It was the same tone of voice he always used when instructing Stiles and it actually kind of got under his skin since Deaton sounded so freaking chill  _ all the time _ . 

Even when shit was going down like that one time when they'd been in the preserve mediating a disagreement between a few mundane supernaturals and had been attacked by freaking pixies.

Which had been  _ terrible  _ and  _ painful _ and  _ bloody _ . Stiles had been the only one actually freaking out about it at the time, though that had in-part been because of the hallucinogenic effects of their saliva. Which there had been a lot of because he’d managed to get bitten by them at least a dozen times, but yeah, Deaton was always so freaking calm it was  _ irritating _ .

Or Stiles was just irritated because he was hanging upside-down, blindfolded and shirtless, which would have been skeevy if he hadn’t gotten so used to it over the past few years of his apprenticeship with the vet slash druid. Also, Stiles kept failing the task at hand, which was to orchestrate his own escape, so he was really more upset with himself than he was with his mentor.

“Why are you so distracted, Stiles?” Deaton asked. He didn’t sound upset, but then again Deaton rarely sounded how he felt. Or, rather, he rarely had any kind of emotional inflection in his voice, but Stiles was pretty sure the lack of progress was grating on the both of them.

But that was his own fault, and not Deaton’s, so he sighed out a long breath, feeling his shoulders slump uncomfortably toward his ears in defeat.

“I’ve been having a hard time concentrating, lately,” he admitted. His face was starting to thud with every beat of his heart and he was sure it was bright red. “I don’t know if my medication needs to be adjusted-”

“You know that’s not the case,” Deaton interrupted smoothly. “Despite us not having a firm diagnosis of your magical predilection, you know you don’t actually need-”

“No, I know, I just,” Stiles broke off with another defeated sigh, unwilling to broach that particular subject again. His dad had wanted him to continue taking his meds, at least until Stiles had full control of his abilities, which was next to impossible since he still didn’t know what, exactly, those abilities would entail.

So instead of rehashing that whole mess, Stiles just frowned and tried to concentrate, even though he knew it was a wasted effort.

It was just him and Deaton, there, and the druid had seen Stiles at his absolute worst, covered in pixie guts and hysterically sobbing at the knowledge that he’d helped kill a hoard of the obnoxious interlopers in order to prevent them from overrunning the local cohort of Brownies that Deaton had helping cultivate the weakening Nemeton. Because even though pixies were actually the worst, Stiles still hadn’t like the fact that he’d been party to their extermination from Beacon Hills. So, yeah, it was him and Deaton, someone he didn’t keep secrets from for a multitude of reasons, mostly centering on the fact that he was startlingly good at seeing through Stiles’ bullshit.

Also, Stiles had quickly learned that what Deaton didn’t know could most definitely hurt them, so he knew better than to keep secrets.

But for some reason he was reluctant to bring up the fact that his lack of attentiveness and overall mental distraction was centered upon how Derek Hale, of all people, knew he was alive, had a questionable ability to understand Polish, and had  _ been to Stiles’ house _ . 

Stiles may or may not have jerked off a few times between the time Derek had left and his standing appointment with Deaton the following afternoon. It had made going to school and seeing Derek there kind of embarrassing, but it wasn’t like the other boy could sense Stiles’ impure thoughts about him or anything.

Still. There was no way Stiles was going to discuss his crush with his mentor.

That was just.

That wasn’t going to happen.

“Keep your eyes closed,” Deaton said, apparently willing to ignore Stiles’ frustration with himself and get them back to the task at hand. “Let your mind settle.”

But that was kind of the problem. Stiles couldn’t seem to figure out how to get his thoughts to stop- being  _ thoughts _ . Plus, there were just so  _ many  _ of them that-

“Ow, shit!” he exclaimed at the sharp poke where Deaton had just shocked him through the delicate silk of the spider’s webbing that was cocooned snugly around his body.

“Focus.”

“You know this would be easier if I could figure out what the hell I even am,” Stiles retorted before he could stop himself. Pain tended to do that to him, make him spout off before he thought about what it was he was even saying.

Well, pain and his ADHD, despite Deaton’s slightly dubious medical opinion. He was a vet, after all.

“We can discuss that, if you’d like,” Deaton said, as glacially calm as he always was.

Stiles sighed, hearing the instruction behind the blandness.

“A druid is a defender,” he recited, “a warlock’s adept at warring, a magician mimics, a wizard hordes wisdom, a mage is a maker, a sorcerer summons, a spark-”

The familiar chime of the bell coming from the front door of the office interrupted Stiles’ recitation. It could have meant someone was there for an appointment even though Deaton tended not to see patients so late in the evening. Particularly not during the evenings when he and Stiles met.

“Don’t move,” Deaton warned him levelly, “and don’t make a sound.”

Which wasn’t an ominous order  _ at all _ , but Stiles did what he’d been told because even though he might have some attention deficit issues, he was still fully capable of following direct orders.

At least that had been his plan until he heard the unmistakable sound of Derek Hale’s voice.

“I found him wandering in the preserve,” he was telling Deaton, and from the sound of it they were approaching the exam room where Stiles was hanging upside-down from the ceiling. Still very much shirtless and blindfolded and bound and kind of panicking because he’d been told  _ not to move _ , which implied that Deaton had cast some kind of cloaking spell on him, but Stiles wasn’t completely sure about that because  _ he  _ could hear them approaching and if Derek saw him there he would jump to some very wrong and very unlawful conclusions which would make Stiles’ and Deaton’s lives  _ very  _ awkward. Well, even  _ more  _ awkward than they already were because pixie guts and hallucinatory crying jags definitely weren’t the worst things he and his mentor had dealt with together.

“Is that so?” Deaton replied, sounding as cool and collected as always. “Why don’t you bring him in here and set him on the table,” he instructed from the doorway and Stiles was pretty sure that if it was possible for his heart to actually beat its way out of his chest then that would be the time for it to happen.

Inside he could feel the ever present hum of his magic, which typically felt as if it flowed throughout his body like blood, collect just behind his navel where it tended to pool when he was about to cast-

A second set of footsteps sounded on the stone floor, rounding the corner just before the door.

-Stiles could feel his fingertips begin to tingle with the pent-up magic-

“Why does it smell like-” Derek began.

-and a burst of power surged out of him, almost feeling like a  _ second  _ cocoon-

“On the table, please,” Deaton said, ignoring whatever it was Derek had been trying to ask.

-and Stiles was left hanging there, his rapid breathing strangely silent even though he was gasping like he’d sprinted for the entire length of the preserve with pixies chasing after him. But he hadn’t done anything other than  _ exist _ and apparently cast a- a what? A  _ cloaking  _ spell? Stiles hadn’t ever been very good at those, but Derek didn’t say anything about noticing him there, so he figured  _ something  _ had to have happened to impede his ability to see Stiles.

Either that or Deaton had cast something of his own and  _ that  _ was why Derek wasn’t freaking out about the potentially kinky-looking bondage situation.

Maybe?

“He looks alright to me,” Deaton said. Probably about whatever animal Derek had brought in. “A little scrawny, perhaps, but I’ll keep him to run some tests and see if he has a microchip. Would you like for me to contact you or your mother about my findings?”

“Um, yeah, okay,” Derek said, sounding kind of distracted. “My mom says she’s going to bring in Cora next week for her-”

“Of course,” Deaton interrupted smoothly, followed by the sounds of their footsteps retreating back toward the front of the clinic.

Stiles let out a shaky breath, but then felt something nudge his forehead. He tried to lean his head back as much as he could, but the soft prickly sensation followed, along with a loud purr.

And apparently Derek had brought in a cat?

The sensation vanished, but before Stiles could open his mouth to try and speak the blindfold fell away and he was face to face with a scruffy, dark-furred feline that was staring at him with big, brilliant green eyes. A shiver went through his body as his magic tingled in recognition.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” he muttered, or  _ tried  _ to mutter, but the cloaking spell was apparently still in place, so no sound emerged from his mouth.

The cat tilted it- _ his _ head to the side, then glanced up at the shimmering white threads of spider-silk wrapped tightly around Stiles’ bare torso and halfway up his jeans, a thick rope of it extending from the cocoon to a hook on the ceiling where Deaton had hung him earlier that afternoon with instructions to free himself without burning down the clinic.

He’d largely failed to do anything other than wriggle himself into a tighter bundle. Because apparently that’s what the silk of gigantic arachnids did when their prey was trapped. The more it wriggled, and sweated, the more the silk constricted.

Stiles watched helplessly as the cat extended his whiskered face to sniff at the threads, but before he could open his mouth to give a useless, silent argument about the dangers of the little furry mammal getting trapped along with him the cat suddenly leapt up with claws extended and the next thing Stiles knew he was slamming down onto the cold stone floor, though he somehow managed to tuck his head instead of getting a concussion.

When he looked up the threads that had been encasing him had been sliced neatly down the middle, the silk still hanging there neatly from the thicker rope.

Beside him, the cat sat contentedly, casually licking one paw like he hadn’t just saved Stiles.

“Fuck,” he muttered silently.

 

\-----------

 

“Dude, since when do you have a cat?” Scott asked, staring skeptically at Nyx, who was pointedly ignoring them as he nibbled between the pads of one of his forepaws. He hadn’t left his perch on Stiles’ bookcase for anything but food since Stiles had brought him home the previous night.

Because even though he was apparently Stiles’ familiar and didn’t actually need to eat or poop or sleep like a normal animal, he still liked to scavenge whatever he could from Stiles’ plate. 

The little glutton.

Stiles shrugged dismissively, not wanting to really get into it. Not being able to, really. 

“Deaton gave him to me,” he said because it was true. The moment Deaton had walked back into the exam room to see the cat sitting beside where Stiles had remained lying on the floor he’d nodded knowingly and waved a hand to dismantle the cloaking spell Stiles had inadvertently cast over himself during his moment of panic.

“Congratulations, my apprentice. It appears you’ve finally found your familiar,” he’d said, and that had pretty much been the end of their discussion as well as their weekly training session. Which was actually kind of helpful, since it confirmed that Stiles was, in fact, a magical being of the human persuasion. That certainly narrowed down what it was he could be, and how his powers might continue to manifest.

Not that Stiles could tell Scott about any of that.

“My boss Deaton?” he asked, his expression twisted like he couldn’t make heads or tails of Stiles’ explanation.

“The one and only. Hey,” he said, wanting to distract his friend from any more awkward questions, “did you get what coach was talking about in class yesterday?”

Scott, bless him, took the bait.

Nyx settled into a crouch shortly after that and watched their study session with half-closed eyes.

 


	3. Preserve

“You can’t be serious,” Stiles said, just to say it, really. Because he knew Deaton  _ was _ serious. He was never anything  _ but _ that when he gave Stiles instructions.

And of course Deaton, long used to Stiles’ frivolous backtalk, just raised his eyebrows in response.

“Ugh, fine, but I’m doing this under protest,” he said like he always did before shucking off his shirt. Stiles wasn’t actually sure  _ why  _ he needed to be shirtless for magic-type stuff, but it was one of the rules of being a druid’s apprentice, apparently, so he shoved the graphic tee into his backpack, swearing when Nyx nipped at his fingers for having accidentally poked him.

“And why does the cat have to be with me for this?” Stiles asked, watching as he leapt gracefully out of the bag onto the forest floor to stretch his legs, first the front and then the back with a kind of grace only felines seemed to possess.

Stiles, on the other hand, sometimes fell out of bed when he stretched in the morning. It was tragically unfair.

“He’s your familiar, Stiles,” Deaton reminded him. “Your bond is still new, so until it solidifies you’re going to have to stay near each other or else risk the threat of damage done to one or both of you, particularly since we’re not quite sure if you’re a druid, like myself, or something else. If you are a druid, you and your familiar will be able to range far afield from each other, but some others, witches in particular, are almost perpetually accompanied by their familiars. Now enough stalling. Go and check the wards along the southern border. I’ll take the west. We’ll meet at the northeast corner at sunset. Don’t be late.”

The edge of the preserve was an improbably large amount of land to cover on foot, but it wasn’t the first time they’d run the line together, so Stiles knew it  _ was  _ actually possible for him and Deaton to get it done in that amount of time. Especially since the sun had only just risen.

But still, it wasn’t exactly how he'd have chosen to spend his Sunday.

Stiles knew better than to argue, though, so he zipped up his bag and slung it over his bare shoulders, ignoring the ache in them from the bruises he’d acquired when he’d slammed onto the floor of Deaton’s clinic two days prior. 

“Come on, dude, let’s do this,” he said to Nyx, who yawned at him, but got to his feet, anyway.

“Right,” Stiles muttered, and took off at an easy jog with the dark-furred cat following along beside him like a shadow.

Despite the early hour, Stiles wasn’t even all that upset about his task. Besides setting things on fire, he was fairly adept at the construction and maintenance of runes, so his weekend chore wasn’t the worst possible way he could spend a day. 

Not that Stiles was exactly a fan of the fact that he’d be spending his entire Sunday out in the woods, especially after having spent the previous afternoon helping Scott hone his lacrosse-playing skills at the park before they’d gotten some studying in. By the end of the border run he knew he’d probably be sweaty and exhausted and probably even more bug-bitten then he already was, but it was better than orchestrating a solstice celebration or negotiating boundary lines with the dryads near the lake, so whatever.

He was a druid’s apprentice and that was his life.

The first ward was a simple one, just meant to warn Deaton and whoever else it was attached to when there was someone unauthorized within the preserve. Stiles put his palm against it and pulled back, making the almost invisible lines carved into the tree illuminate with a pleasant green glow. It, like the rest of the runes around the border, was powered by the Nemeton in the center of the preserve. The color indicated the rune was operating as it should, so Stiles pushed back against it until his palm touched the bark, the green fading gradually.

“One down, about thirty to go,” he told Nyx, who just looked up at him with his judgemental green eyes eerily similar in color to the activated rune.

The next dozen wards, which ranged from warning signals like the first, to mild deterrents aimed at discouraging trespassers with ill intent, all checked out, and Stiles felt himself actually kind of relax as he continued his jog. The day was pleasantly mild, as only fall days seemed to be, the steady crunching of dead leaves under his feet was almost lost in the ambient sounds of the forest. The clicking of insects, the calling of birds, the crashing of something big hurdling through the trees-

Stiles slowed to a stop, frowning in the direction of the sound. He knew deer were loud when they ran, but whatever it was seemed to be moving directly  _ toward  _ him instead of  _ away  _ and was it  _ growling _ ?

“Nyx,” Stiles called softly, not taking his eyes from the shadows of the forest that suddenly seemed a lot more ominous than they had before.

The cat butted his head against Stiles’ calf either in camaraderie or because Stiles had stopped moving or something else entirely and Stiles couldn’t think of anything to do other than scoop Nyx up into his arms, the cat’s unconcerned purring reverberating against his bare chest.

The crashing abruptly ceased.

Stiles tightened his grip on Nyx, who made a displeased noise in his throat until Stiles relaxed his arms enough for the cat to wriggle around and rub his head under Stiles’ chin.

The dense underbrush in front of them rustled for a moment before-

“Derek?” Stiles asked, kind of dumbfounded by the other teen’s unexpected and equally shirtless appearance, though Derek had certainly worked on his upper body a lot more than Stiles had because his muscle definition was  _ unreal _ as his abs glistened in the sunlight filtering through the last of the clinging fall leaves high overhead.

“Stiles?” Derek answered, clearly as baffled, his dark eyebrows quirking as he looked Stiles’ up and down, which Stiles tried not to read into because really, there wasn’t any way Derek was checking him out. 

That just.

That wasn’t within the realm of possibility.

He was probably just confused or something because it wasn’t like Derek had ever seen Stiles shirtless before. Not many people had outside of his freshman year gym class, and even then Stiles had been careful not to show off the various marks, scrapes bruises, and scars he inevitably collected during his training sessions with Deaton.

Currently, he had the impressive spread of bruising across his upper shoulders from his fall at the clinic and a still-healing scratch across his ribs from a close-encounter with an angry nymph. Other silvery raised scars formed a bit more extensive kind of patchwork across his skin from various run-ins, but he just acted like they weren’t there and hoped Derek was willing to play along.

Nyx let out a yowl, which wasn’t a noise Stiles had heard from him before, and leapt out of Stiles’ arms, making a beeline for Derek, who apparently wasn’t wearing any shoes, either? Even though he'd just been galavanting through the woods at speed?

“Um, you don’t have to,” Stiles began, but Derek dutifully crouched down and scratched the black cat under the chin. “Okay, so yeah. Hi, this is Nyx,” he continued to babble, kind of at a loss because nothing about the situation made any sense at all.

“We’ve met,” Derek said, glancing up at him as Nyx did his best to run his face all over the legs of Derek’s jean and his broad hands and every other part of him the cat could reach despite the fact that Derek was actually pretty sweaty and Stiles was really trying not to focus on that.

Still, Stiles couldn’t help but smile at how insistent the cat was since yeah, personally he would kind of love to get all up in that, too. 

But it really wasn’t the time for that kind of a thought.

Also, Nyx shouldn’t have wanted to get close and personal with  _ anyone  _ but his designated magical human. Who was definitely Stiles and  _ not  _ Derek. Because while Derek was certainly magical in his own special way, what with his preternatural beauty and all, he probably wasn’t someone who had the ability to blow things up with his mind. Unlike Stiles. Who maintained that the incident with the microwave had been nothing more than a horrible accident.

“Oh, right, Deaton mentioned something about you having brought him in,” Stiles said faintly as Derek finally straightened up, muscles contracting and shifting in all their glistening magnificence.

And Stiles just needed to  _ stop  _ focusing on that. 

“And now he’s found a good home,” Derek replied, smiling down at the cat and Stiles had to bite his lip to keep from commenting on how freaking adorable Derek looked with such a tender expression on his face.

Nyx meowed one more time at Derek then bounded back to Stiles, stretching up to dig his pin-prick sharp claws into the side of his thigh until he finally bent down and picked the cat up again, lest he try actually climbing up Stiles’ jeans. He immediately found himself swallowing thickly because Nyx's fur was still slightly damp from Derek's sweat and he smelled earthier than he had before and the combination was  _ doing things _ to Stiles.

“So yeah. Hi. Fancy seeing you. Here. In the woods.” While both of them were shirtless and sweaty, Stiles didn’t add. Nor did he mention his own personal agenda because that shit was a secret. Not even Scott knew about his extra curricular magical activities. He was under the impression Stiles was working on merit badges or something.

“Yeah,” Derek said, but his voice kind of trailed off and he suddenly looked really uncomfortable, which Stiles understood completely because he felt the exact same way. 

And it dawned on him then that there really wasn’t a reasonable explanation for  _ either  _ of them to be there, not unless Derek was just running through,  _ barefoot _ , but from the sound of it he’d been kind of  _ rampaging  _ and not going for a casual stroll. But really, the same could be said for  _ Stiles _ . The area they were in was pretty far off the beaten path.

And suddenly Stiles was thankful that the border run assignment wasn't one that required his bare chest to be painted up with protective runes because that would have been completely inexplicable.

“Hey, are you hungry?” Stiles asked, at a loss for what else to say since it wasn’t like he could confess the real reason  _ he  _ was galavanting around in the middle of nowhere and it was pretty clear Derek wasn’t going to be very forthright, either.

Derek looked relieved at the question and nodded quickly. “Yeah, sure.”

Nyx jumped out of Stiles’ arms and trotted over toward an overturned tree nearby, making himself at home in the gentle curve of the bark. Since it looked like as good a place as any to set out their pseudo-picnic, Stiles followed and pulled off his backpack and began extracting the containers of food he’d prepared earlier that morning. He gave his shirt a longing look, but didn’t put it on because he felt that would have probably made things even weirder between them.

“Um, there are the last of the grapes I picked from the arbor in my yard,” he said, popping the lid off the glass container and setting it between them. “They have seeds, so yeah, might want to be careful. Cooked sweet potato slices with goat cheese,” he indicated as he set down the next container. “Uh, there are some whole wheat bagels I made last night and apples I picked at a nearby orchard,” in exchange for some simple runework to help ward off pests, he didn’t add.

When Stiles glanced up Derek was giving him an odd look. “You’re really into eating healthy, aren't you?” he asked, but picked up a slice of sweet potato and goat cheese, anyway.

Stiles shrugged it off and chose one of the apples, figuring filling his mouth with food would be a good enough excuse not to talk. Because talking was what tended to get him into trouble, more often than not. 

Though of course he couldn’t resist answering. 

“I mean, I’ve gotta look after my dad and there’s no way I’m going to let him die an early and very preventable death from heart disease. Plus, studies have shown that some food dyes exacerbate the symptoms of ADHD, so me eating like this is actually doing everyone else a favor, too, you know?”

He shut himself up by taking a bite, chewing as Derek seemed to contemplate his answer.

“It’s good,” he said, gesturing to what he’d just sampled, then reached for a handful of grapes. “My family eats a lot of meat. We hunt around here when the season’s right.”

Stiles hadn’t actually known hunting was legal in the preserve, but seemed to remember having heard about the Hale family having a special kind of dispensation when it came to managing the land. 

Or something. 

He’d kind of been zoning out when Deaton had explained the history of the area, having been very sore and pretty heavily bandaged from a griffin attack at the time, but that meant Derek’s presence made a lot more sense than it had before. Plus the Hale land backed up to the preserve along a couple of the boundary lines. The one he was running along, included.

Nyx took the opportunity to jump down from the log and stretch, jaw opening wide in a yawn that showed off his sharp white teeth. He blinked slowly up at Stiles, then turned purposefully and bolted into the underbrush.

“What the-” Stiles began, leaning forward to slide off his perch, but Derek put a hand on his chest, holding him back.

“He’s hunting,” Derek said, watching avidly where Nyx had disappeared, not seeming to realize he was still touching Stiles’ bare skin.

Or that Stiles’ heart rate had suddenly doubled at the contact and then with the abrupt wash of horror that almost overwhelmed him at the thought of the damage his familiar could do if left to hunt unchecked in the preserve. The supernaturals within it had a hard enough time keeping themselves in line without adding another magical predator to the mix.

He and Deaton had worked relentlessly to negotiate boundaries and codes of conduct between the hidden denizens of the forest and if Nyx somehow infringed upon any of the other creatures-

Something cracked loudly behind them and they both leapt to their feet, whirling around to see that one of the trees nearby had inexplicably split in half down the center. All the way from the leafy canopy to the roots.

Well, it  _ would _ have been inexplicable if Stiles hadn’t accidentally caused the damage himself. At least he  _ assumed _ he was the one to blame. Unless Derek was secretly a druid’s apprentice, too.

But that was pretty unlikely, though Deaton hadn’t ever been very forthcoming about whether or not he was training anyone else.

Stiles opened and closed his mouth, at a loss for what to say, oddly relieved that he hadn’t accidentally set anything on fire, that time, then happened to glance at Derek who had his eyes closed tight, hands clenched into fists as he took deep breaths like he was trying to calm himself down from the edge of a panic attack.

And yeah, that was totally Stiles’ bad.

Nyx broke up the awkward silence by trotting out from where he’d disappeared, a dead-  _ something _ hanging from his mouth and then it was once again Stiles’ turn to try not to panic, but he definitely made a strangled-sounding noise.

“He’s providing for you,” Derek said, apparently recovered from the shock or whatever it was that had been wrong with him. “It’s a sign that he accepts and recognizes your authority.”

Stiles wasn’t sure when Derek had become an expert on feline behavior, but he  _ really  _ wasn’t certain he wanted to know what it was Nyx was dropping at his feet because there could be  _ dire  _ consequences if it was anything other than a typical woodland creature.

Stiles’ mind just kept on its downward spiral of worst-case-scenarios as he stood there, staring down at the furry-looking creature. That probably ruled out a pixie, then, since they weren’t known to clothe themselves in anything other than their own iridescent skin. Which was fortunate for all of them because where one went, a sharp-toothed hoard generally followed.

I  _ was  _ small enough to be a Brownie, though.

Which would be all kinds of terrible after he and Deaton had worked really hard negotiating with them and had only just managed to win them over so they could begin their work on helping maintain the Nemeton at the heart of the preserve.

“Cool,” he lied through clenched teeth, limbs locked as he decidedly did  _ not  _ run away to throw up because that was a-

"He caught you a chipmunk," Derek said, crouching down to give Nyx a congratulatory scratch behind the ears.

Stiles found himself momentarily focusing on the play of muscles on Derek’s back, along with the unexpected stark black lines of what looked to be a triskele tattooed between his shoulderblades. And yeah, the view was pretty distractingly nice.

Until Derek stood up and held out his hand, the limp body of an actual dead chipmunk draped across his fingers like that was a totally normal thing to pick up off the ground or something.

“Oh my god, dude, what the hell?” Stiles hissed, backing up until his legs hit the overturned tree and he sat heavily.

Derek was giving him a weird look. “You should take this,” he insisted and if Stiles didn’t know better he would think Derek was trying to humiliate him on purpose. But either by virtue of him having been homeschooled for most of his life or just him being Derek, Stiles knew he didn’t participate in any of the typical popular high school kid bullying crap. Unlike his buddy Jackson, who had picked on Stiles and Scott consistently throughout their adolescence.

Which was pretty much the only reason Stiles tentatively took the proffered chipmunk corpse, well, that and because he definitely needed to double check to make sure it wasn’t actually a Brownie in disguise. They were pretty good at blending in when they tried. He reluctantly pushed a finger along the small triangle of fur between the tiny creature’s thankfully-closed eyes, but there wasn’t any kind of separation between the base of the skull and the neck, where a Brownie would hide their true face under the hood of fur, which confirmed that it really was just an animal and not any kind of supernatural creature. It was, however still warm and had a bit of blood on it from where Nyx had chomped on its spine.

So that was gross.

“Okay,” he said, drawing out the word and trying to think of what he was supposed to do besides fling it back into the forest like he desperately wanted. “So-”

“When a predator offers you something like this, you’re supposed to praise them to let them know they’ve done a good job,” Derek prompted with more of his unsolicited kitty psychology trivia bombs.

Not that Stiles was upset about that, but the whole situation was kind of stressful and baffling.

“Sure,” Stiles drawled. “Uh, good hunting skills, Nyx,” he said, glancing down at where the cat was sitting regally between his feet, watching Stiles and his kill. “I’m, yeah, super proud of you, dude.” Because at least it wasn’t a Brownie, he told himself, trying to focus on the positive.

When Stiles glanced up at Derek, who was kind of looming over him, he had a gentle smile on his face.

“Now you should eat it,” he said, sounding serious and Stiles sputtered, nearly dropping the soft little carcass, but the corner of Derek’s mouth twitched and Stiles couldn’t help but bark out a startled laugh.

“Bullshit,” he retorted, but he wasn’t even mad about it because seeing the normally uptight Derek look so relaxed, not to mention shirtless and sweaty, was pretty amazing. 

It was a  _ really  _ good look on him.

Derek shrugged, a bit of playful arrogance showing and Stiles was suddenly very glad he was wearing jeans because they at least did something to hide just how much Derek’s unexpected proximity and attention affected him.

“Maybe,” Derek allowed, but then his playful smirk became more genuine and he gestured to their picnic. “Why don’t we use one of the containers to put that in. You can get rid of it later, when Nyx isn’t hovering. That way you won’t offend him and he’ll still think he’s done something helpful.”

And Stiles wasn’t sure why either of them were so concerned about offending the cat, but he wordlessly followed Derek’s instructions and, once the grapes had been dumped out of the glass container and into a pile on Stiles’ discarded shirt, he put the chipmunk’s body inside, letting Derek seal it shut and tuck it gently into his backpack.

“So, this little outing has been way more interesting than I thought it would be,” Stiles said, wiping his hands on his jeans and wishing he could scrub them clean with spring water and some fresh lemongrass or something, unable to get rid of the lingering feeling of velvety soft fur from his fingertips.

Derek made an  _ I’m listening _ noise as he sat back down beside Stiles and casually started popping the grapes into his mouth one at a time. Like touching dead animals and then eating was a perfectly normal thing to do.

Stiles glanced around for his apple, saw that it had fallen into a clump of dead leaves, and decided to leave it for nature to take care of instead of attempting to clean it off. Besides, he’d kind of lost his appetite because unlike Derek, he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the whole death thing.

“Well,” Stiles continued, mouth running because it didn’t have anything else to do, “I certainly wasn’t anticipating a crash course in cat ownership, but thanks for the tips. Hey, how do you know so much about this kind of thing, anyway? Does your family have a lot of cats or something?”

Derek suddenly looked kind of uncomfortable, but then Nyx was jumping up between them on the log and bumping his head first against Derek’s arm and then Stiles’, purring so loudly it was audible even over the general hum of the forest.

“My family doesn’t keep pets,” Derek said, using his free hand to give Nyx a scratch, which the cat leaned into like a little cuddle-glutton.

Stiles nodded. “Yeah, I mean, I’ve never had one, either. Which is probably pretty obvious since I literally know nothing about them. He kind of, uh, picked me? I guess.” Which was actually true. Stiles had never had any intention of getting a pet, but a familiar, as Deaton had often lectured him, was very different from a common animal.

They tended to live as long as the human they were bonded to, for one. They had a higher degree of intelligence, for another. But most importantly they acted as magical conduits and even amplifiers should their druid or mage or whatever other type of magical human they were attached to need the boost.

Of course, none of what Derek had confessed actually explained why he was such a feline expert, but then again he and his family had pretty much grown up in the woods, so Stiles supposed Derek probably knew what he was talking about just by virtue of him having always been a lot closer to nature than most other people in Beacon Hills. Stiles included. At least up until the time his magic had first manifested and Deaton had begun taking him galavanting around the woods to help mediate negotiations between supernaturals and on the occasional rune-checking patrols.

Which reminded Stiles that he actually had stuff to do and a limited amount of time to finish his part of the border run. So even though he would have prefered to stay there talking and being slightly awkward with Derek Hale, he knew he had to get going.

“Well, this has been fun and all-”

“Yeah, I’ve gotta go, too,” Derek readily agreed, but helped Stiles pack up the leftovers without him even asking.

And apparently Derek had been taught manners along with various foreign languages and how to deal with predatory animals. 

“Um, thanks,” Stiles said, taking his proffered backpack and sliding the straps on to settle on his bare shoulders, wincing slightly as it pressed against the impressive bruise there. “So, I’ll see you at school?”

“See you tomorrow, Stiles,” Derek replied, brow furrowed like he wanted to say something else, but he just shook his head and gave Nyx a final scratch under his chin before loping off back the way he’d come. Still barefoot and as confusing as ever.

“Okay, then,” Stiles said quietly, watching him disappear between the trees.

He looked down at Nyx, who was staring up at him with what Stiles considered an equally baffled look on his whiskered face. 

“I don’t know, either, dude.” 

 

\-----------

 

“Five more minutes and I was considering using a summoning spell,” Deaton said mildly as Stiles finally made it to their meeting point. The last rune he’d checked had been a wreck and in need of some delicate repair work. Someone had slashed through the center of it with what looked like claws or a blade or something equally sinister.

Stiles waved off his mentor’s chastisement, though, and gripped his knees as he panted for breath. Nyx appeared at his feet a moment later, looking none the worse for wear despite having kept pace with him for the entire run without flagging.

Because of course he was perfectly fine while Stiles felt like his lungs were on the verge of collapsing.

Stupid familiar magical powers of  _ whatever _ .

“Anything to report?” Deaton asked. He seemed unruffled as well, even though there was a large hawk perched on his arm.

“Is that-” Stiles began, and Deaton nodded.

“Yes, this is Irvine, my familiar. He’s been keeping watch.”

Over Stiles or Deaton, it wasn’t entirely clear. Not that Stiles bothered to ask because it would have been pointless. The golden-feathered hawk blinked his yellow eyes at him with what he assumed was a judgemental expression.

Their familiars had  _ that  _ in common, at least.

But instead of getting into it with Deaton or asking the hundred questions he had about his mentor’s familiar, which he assumed he hadn’t been allowed to see because up until then Stiles hadn’t had one of his own, he gestured over his shoulder in the direction he’d just come. “There was one rune, a warning one, that something had messed up. I fixed it, though.”

That seemed to get Deaton’s attention. Irvine swiveled his head from his study of Nyx, who’d settled his furry butt on Stiles’ running shoes, to look at Stiles. His intense gaze really was off-putting. 

“ _ Messed up _ how?” Deaton asked.

Stiles waved a hand, finally able to straighten up as he was no longer gasping for breath. He knew he should probably do more cardio so he wouldn’t be as absolutely winded every time he went for a jog, but even though Stiles had improved his stamina somewhat over the few years he’d been working with Deaton, particularly given that he had to run near-daily laps around the outside of his house when he wasn’t meeting with the druid, Stiles was still by no means a marathon runner.

Also, he valued his precious free time a bit too much to sacrifice it to something akin to unnecessary cross-country practice.

“You know, sliced or clawed or something,” he explained. “It took me a while to even get the thing to activate, and then I had to shift the entire rune sideways so none of it was in the severed area of the bark. A few strands had come undone, too, but I fixed them back onto the main design.”

Which had taken more out of Stiles than he cared to admit. That kind of work was not exactly easy, though he’d grown fairly adept at doing it.

“Clawed? Are you certain? Or did someone use a blade to make it look like claw marks?” Deaton asked, his own expression almost as hawk-like as his familiar’s.

And that seemed like kind of a weird question, really. Or at least his tone was weird, Stiles was more used to Deaton sounding like some kind of a zen yoga instructor, not like his dad during an interrogation.

He didn’t know what else to do but shrug. “I don’t know, could have been either,” Stiles admitted, “I fixed the line breaks and reactivated it, though it took a bit of pushing to get it reconnected to the Nemeton. Why? Should I  _ not  _ have-”

“That’s fine. Good work, Stiles. Now, don’t you need to be home in time for dinner?” Deaton asked, sounding once again like nothing at all affected him. Even his bird was back to looking unruffled.

“Shit, I mean shoot, yeah. Thanks for today, I guess. Always love tramping around the forest touching trees and stuff,” he said, but Deaton was already walking away from him so it didn’t really matter.

Stiles glanced down at Nyx, who gave a wide yawn.

“Looks like it’s just you and me, buddy. Now let’s hope we can get back to the jeep before it’s pitch black out.”

Which was too much to hope for, he knew, but he began the long journey through the preserve, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't have a high school au without an awkward preserve meet-up, right?


	4. Accidental

“Dude, you look like shit,” Scott said, slamming his locker so loudly Stiles jolted. Which made him realize he’d kind of been dozing, but that was to be expected after him having had traversed almost the entirety of the preserve the previous day. He definitely hadn’t gotten to his jeep before dark, nor had he made it home in time for dinner, and even after having worked on some of his homework with Scott on Saturday, he’d  _ still  _ had to spend a few more hours on chemistry problems. So no, Stiles hadn’t actually gotten much sleep.

At all.

“Thanks, bro,” he replied, not even making an effort to put feeling into it because he really just wanted to curl up under a table somewhere and take a nap, which was probably what Nyx was doing in the comfort of Stiles’ room, all conked out on that one spot he favored at the foot of Stiles’ bed, just in the way of where he liked to keep his own feet at night. But Stiles had school all day and then he’d told his dad he’d take care of the grocery shopping that night-

“Dude, is that your cat?” Scott whispered, which was actually more of a  _ stage  _ whisper because he was seriously lacking subtlety. 

Still, Stiles flailed around in response and very nearly slammed his backpack against the locker behind him when a hand shot out and snagged the loose strap. Which was fortunate because Stiles could suddenly see Nyx’s brilliant green eyes shining up at him from the dark depths of his bag.

“Fuck,” he muttered, then remembered that there was someone else involved in things and whipped his head up to see that, yep, Derek Hale had been the one responsible for preserving Nyx’s bodily integrity with his apparently lightning-fast reflexes.

“Uh,” Stiles said, honestly at a loss.

“Don’t think he’d enjoy being concussed,” Derek said easily and Stiles felt himself flush because he couldn’t help but remember their meeting the previous day and Derek’s sweaty, shirtless torso and yeah, Stiles seriously hadn’t gotten enough sleep. He was way too tired to deal with anything that was happening to him in that moment.

Which was probably why he said, “I gave Nyx that dead chipmunk when we got home and he chirped at me. Did you know cats can chirp?”

“That means they’re like, super happy,” Scott helpfully supplied, long used to Stiles’ random conversational detours. “But why did you bring him to school, dude? You know you can’t-”

“I didn’t,” Stiles protested, then rolled his eyes at Scott and Derek’s equally judgemental looks. The day was getting weirder and weirder and he hadn’t even made it to his first class, yet. “I didn’t  _ intentionally  _ pack my cat this morning, guys, he just. He just hitched a ride, I guess? And now I don’t know what to do with him,” he finished, looking down at where Nyx had apparently decided was a great place to curl up in a ball and fall asleep. In the backpack that both he and Derek were still holding.

“Laura’s dropping Cora off in a few minutes. She can take him back to your house,” Derek proposed, already getting out his phone with his free hand.

Before Stiles could protest he was talking to his older sister and apparently arranging to transport Stiles’ obnoxious familiar. Which was fine and dandy except-

“Shit, my dad’s working, so there’s no one home and I don't have a spare key,” he said and Derek relayed the information, listened for a second, agreed to whatever Laura must have said, then hung up and pocketed his phone.

“She’ll take him to our house, then, and you can come get him after school.”

Stiles couldn’t really do anything other than agree, letting Derek take the backpack from him and walk away.

 

\-------------

 

“This is a terrible idea,” he muttered to himself as he drove out past where he’d normally turn to go home. “This is a terrible idea and it’s going to end in tears or a spontaneous casting or some other horrible thing I can’t even come up with right now.”

Which was probably an exaggeration, Stiles knew, but he was feeling melodramatic and exhausted after the day he’d had, not to mention the pounding headache that had been beating around inside his skull for hours. He’d been late for his first class, had forgotten to bring money for lunch, then there had been an accidental spill of some maybe corrosive chemicals in chemistry class that he maintained had  _ not  _ been his fault, and  _ then  _ there’d been a pop quiz in his honors English class where he’d forgotten the main character’s name in  _ Hamlet _ . Add to that his lack of sleep and the fact that he may or may not have forgotten to take his ADHD meds that morning and things were not looking very good for him.

And then there was Nyx.

“Annoying fucker,” Stiles mumbled, but immediately felt guilty and he sighed out a disgruntled breath because he  _ knew  _ it wasn’t Nyx’s fault. He figured it was probably some kind of magic thing neither of them had any control over because he  _ was  _ Stiles’ familiar and like Deaton had said, they needed to stick together for a while until their bond settled. And he had to wonder how that had worked out for his mentor and his hawk. It wasn’t like Irvine could fit into a backpack or ride on his shoulder when he went to the store or anything. That bird was  _ huge _ and  _ conspicuous _ .

Stiles absently pondered the logistics of it as he drove through the largely deserted streets of the outer edges of Beacon Hills and off into what was considered the wilderness. The turnoff to the Hale house was hidden amongst the trees along one of the roads skirting the preserve and he took it with only a little hesitation. Derek had assured him that he’d be there when Stiles reached his house, but the thought of going out there all by himself was still intimidating.

_ Everyone  _ knew about the Hales, partially because of how unbelievably gorgeous they all were, but also because the family’s ancestors had established the town back during the days of the gold rush. Though, despite their reputation for being practically celebrities as far as Stiles knew no one had ever been out to where the Hales lived, at least not in recent memory. 

Except for Stiles’ dad, probably, back when the mountain lion attacks in the preserve had been bad a half dozen years prior. But he’d never said anything about it other than the fact that the place was huge and the family was nice and  _ not to pry into people’s private lives, Stiles, they’re just ordinary people _ .

The Sheriff certainly hadn’t been lying about the size of the house, at least.

Stiles gaped as he took one final turn and the gigantic brick and white-trimmed home suddenly loomed out of a surprisingly normal-looking lawn. There were a few kids running around in the grass, barefoot and laughing as they chased each other under the watchful eye of an older woman who sat on the porch knitting what looked to be a blanket.

There were flowers in neat beds bordering the brick of the house, still blooming brightly despite the shortening fall days and lingering nights.

One of the children stumbled and almost fell into one of the thick patches of bright purple flowers, but somehow managed to course correct before they could wreck anything, which prompted a loud chorus of giggles from the other kids.

Overall, it was far less Addams-family-esque than Stiles had anticipated.

He parked beside the black sports car he knew Derek drove on occasion when his older sister wasn’t using it and hopped out, belatedly wondering if he should have maybe called ahead or-

“Stiles,” Derek called from the front door. The older woman had stopped knitting and was watching him as he walked up to the house. Stiles was momentarily distracted by the sharp look she was giving him that he didn’t immediately respond to Derek’s greeting, not until he’d reached the steps and began to climb up.

“Hey, Dere-”

“Stiles, hurry, it’s Nyx,” he interrupted, which immediately drew Stiles’ entire attention. Derek was frowning, his dark eyebrows drawn down, face unusually somber for a guy who was already pretty good at looking broody.

“Nyx? What’s wrong-”

“Come on, I’ll take you up to him,” Derek said, grabbing onto his wrist and pulling him over the threshold and into the house. Stiles felt a kind of tingling rush through his body, but didn’t think anything of it because if there was something wrong with Nyx he’d have to get him to Deaton as quickly as possible. Which was convenient either way-

Derek practically dragged him up the wide staircase opposite the front door.

-because Deaton was both a vet as well as a druid, and he’d be able to cure whatever ailed Stiles’ familiar. It wasn’t like Derek or anyone else would be able to object to Stiles whisking Nyx off to go there. It really was the perfect possible situation, aside from the fact that there was apparently _something wrong_ _with Stiles’ familiar_.

They took the hallway to the right and then the first left, and yeah, the house-

When did a house stop being a house and begin to be considered a mansion?

-was  _ enormous _ . Derek came to a stop in front of a closed door and turned to face him with a contrite expression.

“I’m sorry, Laura said he was fine earlier, but then we checked on him a few minutes ago and-”

Stiles pushed past him into the room, but stopped short because Nyx was sprawled out on top of a dark gray comforter on a large bed and  _ it didn’t look like he was breathing _ .

“No, no, no,” he muttered, unaware of having closed the distance, but he was there, suddenly, knees thudding hollowly onto the hardwood floor, his hands running over the cat’s soft fur. Nyx was unnaturally still beneath his palms and  _ none of it made any sense _ .

Familiars weren’t supposed to die before their human companions. Stiles was under the impression that they  _ couldn’t _ . But there Nyx was, not breathing or moving or-

“Bullshit,” he muttered, and Derek was saying something, but Stiles wasn’t listening because there was  _ no way _ he was letting that happen and his palms were growing hot where he had them pressed against Nyx’s limp body and sweat was gathering on his forehead and Derek just  _ kept talking _ , but it sounded like nothing more than noise and it was kind of soothing, actually as Stiles’ pulse thundered at his aching temples, his vision spotting as power surged through him in a wave that swept him into darkness.

 

\----------------

 

“Yes, sir. He’s sleeping right now,” Stiles thought he heard Derek say, but that didn’t make much sense because he could feel Nyx nuzzling against his cheek and there wasn’t any way those two things could possibly be happening in the same place at the same time.

No, he was at home in bed and Derek’s voice was just a figment of his imagination-

“It’s fine-” 

And apparently the delusion was  _ persistent _ .

“-he came over to study and fell asleep. Would you like for me to wake him up so you can speak to him?”

The pleasant feeling Stiles had been floating in, the post-nap kind of haze, began to evaporate as Nyx’s whiskers tickled his nose and the unfamiliar softness of the bed underneath him finally made him reconsider his initial assessment of the situation.

Because, yeah, Stiles definitely wasn’t at home. At least not in his own home.

Not with the way it smelled like garlic and tomatoes, since his dad hadn’t gone near the stove to cook anything but bacon and eggs since Stiles’ mom had died, nor with the way he could hear bare feet pacing across a wooden floor since the Stilinski house was mostly carpeted where there wasn’t old, peeling laminate.

Which meant he was still at  _ Derek’s  _ house, but that didn’t make any sense,  _ either  _ because the last thing he remembered-

“Nyx?” he mumbled, opening his eyes and immediately starting because the cat was  _ right there _ , big green eyes staring straight at him.

“I’ll let him know you called. Yes, of course. You’re welcome, sir. You, too. Goodbye,” Derek said.

And then the room was silent.

Nyx rubbed his face against Stiles’ one last time before wandering off to do whatever, leaving Stiles void of anything to focus on other than the fact that he’d apparently passed out in Derek’s room on Derek’s bed.

Assuming that was actually where he was.

For all Stiles knew it could be Laura’s room, or Cora’s, or any of the other seemingly endless extended family members that were rumored to reside all together in the sprawling Hale home.

“Are you just going to keep pretending that you’re still sleeping, or are you going to actually get up?” Derek asked, voice unusually playful.

Stiles figured he might as well get it over with and sat up quickly, like ripping off a bandaid, but the blood rush to his head almost made him keel over again and then Derek was right there, his hand warm on Stiles’ shoulder, steadying him.

“I talked to your dad,” Derek continued instead of pointing out how irrationally Stiles was acting, which was greatly appreciated since Stiles was pretty good at berating himself without any additional assistance from unfairly hot classmates. “He’s okay with you staying here for dinner, which is great because there’s no way my grandmother is going to let you leave the house until after you’ve been fed. My parents and all the other adults are out at a meeting, or they’d insist as well.”

He was smiling at Stiles, and that made about as much sense as anything else that had happened to him that day.

Which was to say  _ none _ .

“Nyx?” Stiles said, half asking what had happened and half wondering where his familiar had gotten to, but Derek seemed to understand because suddenly Stiles had a lapful of purring cat. 

“I don’t know what was wrong with him, but almost as soon as you touched him he started breathing again, but then you passed out?”

Stiles didn’t know the answer to that anymore than Derek did, not unless he’d somehow used his magic to revive Nyx, but as far as Stiles knew that wasn’t actually a thing that could happen. Not outside of some of the darker forms of casting, at least. Sacrifices and bloodletting were not for the faint of heart or those who had any kind of moral code. Deaton had very firmly steered him away from that type of thing, giving Stiles enough warnings and examples of how it could go horrifically wrong to make him never want to dabble in any of that.

Of course he’d been a bit obsessed with that kind of thing early on; determined to find a way he could have saved his mother’s life, but he’d quickly discovered that any kind of magical intervention when it came to most medical issues almost always caused more harm than good. So Nyx being suddenly alive and okay? That was just  _ bizarre _ .

Nyx purred loudly, defying the prognosis, and butted his head against Stiles’ chest with enough force to push him back. Derek’s hand was still on his shoulder, though, and Stiles didn’t know what to do, so he cupped Nyx’s head in his hands, rubbing his thumbs against the cat’s furry cheeks until he was finally satisfied that there wasn’t any kind of lasting damage done despite the inexplicability of Nyx’s mysterious ailment and sudden revival.

“I, uh, thanks,” Stiles settled on, glancing at Derek, who was watching the exchange with a soft smile. And he didn't know what had happened to make his life suddenly feel so unbalanced, but for some reason he suspected Derek to be a major component of that.

He just didn't understand  _ why _ .

"Wait, did you say something about dinner?" he asked and Derek chuckled.

Yeah, Stiles was pretty sure he'd woken up in the Twilight Zone.

Nyx meowed. Stiles liked to think it was in agreement.

 

\-----------------

 

"You know you could have just told me you and Derek Hale are dating instead of sneaking around like you were up to no good," Stiles' dad said as soon as he walked in the door.

That kind of surprise attack was his standard tactic for catching Stiles off guard and getting him to admit to any number of stupid things he’d done, but for once he wasn't actually guilty.

"Um, no," Stiles replied, not even pausing as he continued on to the staircase and up to his room because he was  _ not  _ dealing with any of that. Not with Nyx still to feed, even though the cat didn’t even  _ need  _ that kind of nourishment despite his loud insistence upon having both a food and water bowl, and then Stiles still had homework to do and-

" _ Stiles _ ," his dad said from his doorway, apparently having followed him up. His warning tone and stern expression meant that Stiles was already on thin ice and that one wrong move would send him sinking into the oblivion known as being grounded from everything fun and wonderful in life.

Which was  _ not  _ what Stiles wanted to have happen.

So he sighed and scrubbed a hand over his probably wild-looking hair before turning to face his dad with what he hoped was a suitably contrite expression.

"Sorry, Dad. I meant no, Derek's not my boyfriend," he clarified, setting his backpack on the bed so Nyx could climb out and stretch.

Stiles sighed again, dreading the chapters of reading ahead of him, but then he felt the warm weight of his dad's hands on his shoulders and glanced back at him with a frown.

"Wha-"

"Son, you know you can talk to me about anything, right? About your magic stuff or this thing with Derek-”

“There’s no  _ thing  _ with Derek,” he protested, but even to him the argument sounded weak.

The problem was, he wasn’t sure  _ what  _ was going on between him and Derek. At first he’d thought they’d just had a kind of casual study-buddy sort of relationship, but then the whole mutual shirtlessness thing in the woods had happened and then Derek had been so  _ nice  _ to him and had helped take care of Nyx, and then, most confusing of all, Stiles had apparently passed out on his bed and slept for three hours while Derek had covered for him.

It  _ had  _ been Derek’s room, he’d found out. Because apparently Nyx had weaseled his way out of Stiles’ backpack the moment Laura had entered the house and he’d made a beeline for Derek’s bed, refusing to leave it or let anyone get near him until Derek had gotten home, but apparently by then he’d been acting pretty strange, unable to walk more than a few steps without collapsing, panting for breath, and then apparently almost  _ dying _ .

If Stiles had shown up any later he was convinced Nyx really would have been dead, and not just remained in the weird little kitty coma he’d found him in.

He reflexively reached for Nyx, and was immediately rewarded with an extremely affectionate feline who rolled his head against Stiles’ hand like it was the best thing in the entire world.

“So what’s going on with you and the cat?” his dad asked, magnanimously changing the subject. He’d retreated to the door, arms folded across his chest because he knew better than to touch Nyx. According to Deaton no one was really supposed to handle another person’s familiar, not if they knew that was the animal’s role, at least.

That had taken some explaining on Stiles’ part, but his dad had been surprisingly chill about most things magic-related. He’d mostly been concerned about the added cost of keeping a pet, but Stiles had explained Nyx’s magical properties and he’d just huffed out an unsurprised breath and shrugged.

Well, Stiles had told his dad the  _ relevant  _ parts, which were that the cat was Stiles’ familiar and they’d both have to get used to having him around for the rest of Stiles’ life. Stiles hadn’t exactly gone into detail about the situation he’d been in when Derek and Nyx had entered the clinic, with the magically-created spiderweb trap and all that jazz. Stiles had long learned that the details of Deaton’s lessons were best left vague or else risk his dad threatening to do terrible things to his mentor in the name of protecting his only kid.

Not that Stiles  _ needed  _ that kind of protection, not the  _ law enforcement _ kind at least, but the thought of his dad having his back still warmed him even if he deliberately kept the sheriff mostly in the dark.

“Stiles?” his dad prompted and Stiles let out a long sigh.

“Fine, yes. I think I’ve been having kind of a hard time controlling my magic recently,” he found himself confessing. Because that’s the way things worked in the Stilinski house. Stiles always ended up spilling his secrets to his dad, in the end. 

“Deaton said it’s  _ not  _ because of my ADHD, but I’m not sure I really believe that. Oh, and Nyx hitched a ride with me to school this morning, so Derek had his older sister Laura take him home with her since you weren’t home, and when I got there it looked like he was sick or maybe even dying and I must have cast or been more exhausted than I thought because I kind of passed out and when I woke up Nyx was perfectly fine and Derek’s grandma had made dinner for all of us kids, all the other Hale adults were out at a meeting or something, and it was delicious and now I’m home. So yeah, that’s why I was at Derek’s place for so long.”

His dad gave him an evaluating look, the one that said he was sorting through the information he’d been given and was looking for inconsistencies or areas to press for more detail, but instead of going into full-on interrogation mode, like Stiles had expected he would, he just nodded his head with a smirk.

“That place is huge, isn’t it?”

Stiles was momentarily thrown by his dad’s lack of pushing, but he had too much else to worry about, so he let it go, too, nodding easily.

“Yeah, it’s pretty epic. I mean, from the road it seems totally out of place there in the middle of the woods, but inside it’s like something from a tv show.”

“And did you thank Grandma Hale for cooking you dinner?” his dad asked because he knew Stiles well enough to be aware of his sometimes absent minded lack of manners.

But he nodded quickly. “Yeah, I did. It was really good, she’s a great cook.” The Hale kids, Derek and Cora and their various cousins, had been pretty entertaining to listen to as they babbled about their days. Well, the rest of them had babbled while Derek had sat quietly beside him and watched as Stiles had snuck a few pieces of meatball onto his lap for Nyx to nibble on.

His dad chuckled and gave him one last assessing look before bidding him a good night.

“Night, Dad. Love you, too,” Stiles said, closing his door and turning to face Nyx, who was sitting on his bed watching.

“You,” he said, pointing at the cat, “are more trouble than you’re worth. What the hell was that, today?”

Nyx yawned in response and curled up in a tight circle, though he still watched as Stiles just shook his head and grabbed his books because he had hours yet of homework to do and there really was no use trying to get answers out of an animal.

He figured he’d just have to wait to talk to Deaton about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stiles really needs to get a handle on this whole magic thing, right?


	5. Awkward

“Say what, now?” Stiles asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes with one hand and staring blearily at where Nyx had his claws buried in the back of Stiles’ computer chair, creating neat lines of gouges with a blissed out look on his face as the fabric parted with a shiver-inducing noise.

Stiles didn’t bother to tell him off for it, though, since it was his own fault he hadn’t bought a scratching post, yet. He’d read somewhere that it was a necessary kind of release for cats, being able to scratch things, so he just watched and hoped Nyx didn’t attack any of the living room furniture in the future. 

“I told you before,” Deaton’s tinny voice said through the cellphone speaker, “your bond is not set. You and your familiar will need to stay close to one another until that is the case, or else risk severing your new connection, which can have dire consequences for one or both of you. And since we’re still not yet certain of what powers you might manifest, it is essential that you maintain balance in as many aspects of your life as is possible. For now you and your familiar will need to stay within several feet of one another, or at least remain in the same room at all times.”

Nyx finally abandoned his destructive activities to wander over to a patch of early morning sunlight, staring up at the motes drifting lazily around him, whiskers twitching as he sniffed the air.

“But school,” Stiles said, unable to come up with a more articulate response.

He heard Deaton sigh and very much wanted to echo him, but knew he needed to pay attention and act at least kind of respectful toward his mentor.

“You performed that cloaking spell last week, I don’t see why you can’t use the book I lent you to make some modifications to a similar spell. It shouldn’t be hard to use it to hide your familiar’s presence. Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to open up the clinic. Shall I count on seeing you this afternoon or would you like wait until your normal appointment on Friday afternoon?”

Stiles couldn’t hold in his sigh, that time. “Friday’s fine. Thanks, Deaton.”

He hung up and flopped back onto the rumpled covers on his bed, kind of hating the fact that he was a magical human being because it really tended to complicate his life in new and unique ways.

But he couldn’t hold onto that kind of resentment for long, not with the knowledge that he’d inherited his particular gift from his late mother. She’d apparently apprenticed back east, or maybe even in her home country, but she’d never talked about it with him, since his own abilities hadn’t manifested until after she’d died, and Stiles was still too cautious to question his dad about such a sensitive topic despite the years that had lapsed since her passing.

So he rolled onto his stomach and reached under his bed, where he was sure other boys his age kept their porn or lube or whatever other contraband, but he just had a wooden box full of assorted magical paraphernalia. 

Stiles scooted it out until he could place his palm against the complicated rune he’d painstakingly carved onto the top and waited for it to flare green before unlatching and opening the lid. It took him a second of digging, but he finally managed to lift out the heavy weight of the leather bound spellbook Deaton had entrusted to Stiles.

He still had a few more minutes before he needed to start getting ready for school, so Stiles closed his eyes and cracked open the book, concentrating on what he needed to accomplish as he felt the pages rustle faintly beneath his palm before they whispered to a stop.

When he opened his eyes to look, Stiles found a relatively simple cloaking spell displayed on the page. It was exactly the right kind, too, meant to conceal a small living thing. There weren’t many ingredients required to do it, either, and he sighed in relief because he didn’t relish having to galavant around the woods searching for nightshade or anything complicated like that in the limited time he had before school that morning. Because skipping class was definitely not an option, as per his agreement with his father about not letting his magic interfere with his education. Not unless it was a dire, life-or-death kind of an emergency.

After a quick shower, making sure to first stow the book and the box back under his bed where he’d gotten them, he wrapped a towel around his waist and got out the necessary ingredients along with the heavy tome.

Stiles’ bare body was still damp, but Nyx didn’t seem to care as he came over and rubbed along Stiles’ spine, getting his fur wet before he came to a stop in front of Stiles and the book.

“Okay, little dude, here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m going to cast this cloaking spell and you’re going to come with me to school. This will conceal your appearance from people, but not any noises you make, so keeping your purring and meowing to a minimum would be appreciated. We good?”

Nyx blinked at him.

“Right,” Stiles said, nodding for the both of them. “Please hold still while I do this,” he said, dipping his thumb in the little concave seashell drizzled with anise-scented oil and bringing it up for Nyx to sniff. The cat sneezed at the strong smell, but allowed Stiles to press a thumb between his ears, sliding it along his spine and all the way to the tip of his dark tail.

“Gods of light, conceal this creature from our sight,” Stiles said, tapping into that ever present ball of magic that seemed nestled within his belly. It bloomed with the summons and poured down his arm for a brief, blinding second, engulfing Nyx with a hazy golden brilliance before disappearing.

Just like the cat.

Stiles blinked rapidly, trying to clear the afterimage from his eyes. “Nyx?” he called, glancing around, but his familiar really was gone.

He had a paralyzing moment of self-doubt, thinking that he might have messed something up or sent Nyx to another dimension or something before he felt the familiar soft press of the cat’s head against his bare knee.

“Oh, thank the gods,” he said, letting out a relieved breath. “Okay, I’m going to finish getting ready and then we’re going to get out of here. But remember, you’ve gotta stick close, and you have to stay quiet or our cover will be blown. Got it?”

Nyx responded by playfully nipping Stiles’ hand, so that was something.

 

\-----------------

 

Stiles managed to make it through most of the week without incident, which was pretty astonishing given that he was normally kind of a walking disaster when he was preoccupied. He was even starting to feel cautiously optimistic that he could get away with having Nyx continue to shadow him without incident when, unsurprisingly, his luck abruptly gave out during lunch on Thursday. 

Which was pretty much how things went for him.

Stiles was walking over to his normal table where he sat by Scott and a few other rejects, trying to figure out where Nyx had gotten to without being able to see him, there had been a minor incident earlier that week involving Linda Bernstead’s tuna sandwich he didn’t want repeated, when Stiles abruptly crashed into Jackson Whittemore, of all people.

Of course Stiles couldn’t have chosen the grilled chicken sandwich that day. No, he’d   gotten the other hot lunch option, which just so happened to be a giant glob of tomato-paste-covered lasagne. Which spattered all over Jackson’s white probably-designer shirt, dripping down his skinny jeans and plopping onto his trendy shoes.

Stiles was going to  _ die _ .

The look of pure rage on Jackson’s face would have been terrifying, once upon a time, but Stiles had been attacked by pixies and a griffin and had been charged and nearly drowned by an irritated kelpie while wading through a flooded river during a downpour. All Stiles had been trying to do was find the single enchanted stone haphazardly tossed somewhere along the shoreline and whose power was the only thing that would make the unnatural rain stop.

So, no, Stiles wasn’t easily scared, was the thing. Not after those and a dozen other equally traumatizing incidents that had come of his apprenticeship with Deaton.

Stiles was, however, perfectly aware of how Jackson could and would undoubtedly beat him to a bloody pulp for violating such a standard social taboo.

Because rejects did not, under any circumstances, force popular kids to acknowledge their existence. That was just an understood rule of the basic social dynamics of high school.

Stiles was  _ screwed _ .

Also probably concussed, he figured, as the back of his head and the still-tender bruises on his shoulders were slammed against the painted concrete wall of the cafeteria with a sickening crack. They’d already gathered an audience, of course, because no high school life lesson would be complete without one.

“You’re going to regret this,” Jackson spat, his face red, pale eyes full of hate and Stiles was inordinately glad the other guy didn’t possess any kind of supernatural powers because he was the type that would have let it go to his head.

Not that Jackson didn’t  _ already  _ have a problem with douchebag rage-control.

Which was suddenly  _ Stiles’  _ problem as well.

“Already regretting,” he managed to squeak out before Jackson’s hold on the collar of his shirt tightened enough to make breathing an issue.

Which was an unexpectedly bold turn, really. Stiles hadn’t anticipated that Jackson would actually try to choke him out in the middle of the cafeteria. Not with so many witnesses around. Though to be fair, his dad was a sleazy lawyer, so Jackson probably figured he’d be able to get away with it, no problem.

Stiles thought he heard Nyx yowl unhappily, but couldn’t figure out where the noise had come from. Also? Stiles had a bigger problem on his hands than his wayward familiar’s issues, what with a roid-raging asshole in front of him and his magic pulsing quickly at his core, attempting to loose itself to aid in Stiles’ defense.

“You think you’re so funny?” Jackson asked. 

Rhetorically, of course. Because Stiles couldn’t actually breath enough to answer. 

“You think you’re  _ so important _ because your daddy’s the  _ sheriff _ ?” Which was a weird tangent, but certainly one Stiles had heard a variation of before when he’d been in similar situations in the past. “Well that’s not going to protect you, this time-”

Like it ever had  _ before _ ?

“-because I’m going to beat-”

Suddenly the asphyxiating pressure against Stiles’ throat disappeared, along with the support it had apparently been giving him because he half-collapsed into a crouch. He was immediately greeted by the familiar feel of Nyx headbutting his leg and the quieting of his magic, since he was no longer in imminent peril.

When Stiles finally caught his breath and looked up Derek had a grip on the back of Jackson’s soiled shirt, holding it up high enough to keep him from moving forward to attack Stiles again. It kind of made Jackson look like an angry dog struggling against his collar, actually, or like a puppy attempting to wriggle free of someone’s restraining hands, his arms flailing at his sides, partially trapped by the awkward pull of his shirt.

Stiles had to tamp down his impulse to smile at that thought because it really  _ wasn’t  _ funny, not the threats Jackson had made against him or the inevitable aftermath that would likely still follow.

Also, he was baffled as to why Derek had even bothered to intervene. Stiles knew he would get his comeuppance sooner or later, since that was the way thing always worked out for him.

“What’s going on?” Coach Finstock barked from halfway across the cafeteria as he stalked toward them, waving away the spectators and eyeballing first Stiles, then Jackson. 

Derek slowly released his hold on his friend’s collar and casually wiped his hands on his tight jeans.

“A minor disagreement,” he answered smoothly for the three of them. “We’ve sorted it out, though.”

Finstock glanced between them again like he wasn’t sure if that was true or not before barking out an abrupt laugh. “You’ve got food down your front, Jackson, get that taken care of. Don’t want flies around here. Lord knows we have enough things to worry about without an infestation,” he said, wandering away to yell at some kids for sitting on the cafeteria tables. 

Jackson glared at Stiles before he slunk off with Danny and a few others in tow, which really didn’t bode well for Stiles’ future, but Derek lingered behind, offering his hand to Stiles and hauling him easily to his feet.

“Uh, thanks?” he said, voice rough, but his mom had taught him to always be polite to someone who thought they were being helpful, even if the help they offered came at a cost they didn’t necessarily understand.

Derek’s hand was warm and soft in his, and seemed to linger for a beat longer than was strictly necessary once he was upright and stabilized.

Nyx butted his head against Stiles’ calf and he suddenly remembered that his familiar was actually invisible and tended to enjoy getting close to Derek, even though the cat wasn’t supposed to touch other people, which he would probably do anyway and that would be entirely impossible to explain. Nyx had been pretty good thus far that week, but nothing about Stiles’ sudden encounter with Derek was part of their normal routine.

“So, yeah, thanks,” Stiles repeated. The rest of their audience had drifted off in search of something else to entertain them, though Stiles could see Lydia Martin, of all people, giving him and Derek a considering look where she sat next to her new best friend and Scott’s biggest crush of all time, Allison Argent.

Scott, too, was watching them with undisguised horror and Stiles kind of felt bad, but not really when he backed away toward the door that led out onto the lawn.

“Um, see you in class?” he said, hoping Nyx followed after him instead of harassing Derek with his invisibleness. 

He barely heard Derek offer a little confused affirmation before he was out the door, making a beeline for the bleachers, which were normally teeming with the less social teenagers when it was warmer out, but the weather had taken a chilly turn the night before and even with his hoodie on, it was almost uncomfortably crisp.

Stiles glanced over his shoulder, but no one had followed him, so he ducked under the huge metal structure and folded down to sit cross legged on the cold concrete.

“Holy shit,” he said, feeling his chest tighten with a delayed reaction to the danger he’d been in. Was probably still in. He had no doubts that Jackson could still wreak absolute havoc on him in some unsubtle and humiliating way.

Probably sensing his growing panic, Nyx obligingly wriggled his way into Stiles’ lap, purring loudly after having kept mostly quiet apart from the startled yowl in the cafeteria, but Stiles found himself running his hands along the cat’s body to make sure he hadn’t gotten hurt during the confrontation. It served to calm Stiles down, too, having something else to focus his attentions on.

Nyx was also pleasantly warm, adding an unexpected shock of comfort to the largely uncomfortable situation he’d inadvertently gotten himself into. 

Then there was the whole  _ Derek  _ component and  _ that  _ didn’t add up for Stiles, either.

But he didn’t have long to think about it because suddenly Scott’s face popped out from around the side of the bleachers, huffing for breath in a way that was just shy of him needing to take a hit from his inhaler.

“Dude, what the heck was that?” Scott asked, apparently not noticing anything weird as Stiles unceremoniously dumped the invisible cat onto the ground beside him and scrambled to his feet with his standard flailing of limbs.

The disgruntled noise Nyx made in response was barely audible over Stiles’ subsequent babbling fit, which took them from the bleachers to one of the side-doors that  _ didn’t  _ lead into the cafeteria and down the hallway to their lockers. He barely stopped to breathe, too concerned with distracting Scott from questioning him further about Derek’s role in things. He was practically panting by the time the warning bell rang.

“Okay, gotta go, good chat,” Stiles said, patting his friend on the shoulder and making his way across the hall to Mr. Harris’ class without a backward glance, not wanting to know how what Scott’s reaction was to all of that word vomit.

He managed to slip inside and find his seat without incident, but then Derek was there, settling next to him with an evaluating look. Derek had sat next to Lydia every other day that week, so the change was most definitely deliberate.

“Danny talked to Jackson, so you shouldn’t have to worry about anything,” he said right off the bat, like he could tell Stiles was still kind of freaked out. “It was an accident. That kind of thing happens.”

But after having thought more about it, Stiles wasn’t necessarily worried about what Jackson would try to do to  _ him  _ as much as he was concerned about his  _ own  _ reaction because time and again his magic had reacted to situations he wouldn’t otherwise have tried to escalate.

Which was kind of embarrassing, really, that even his magic thought he couldn’t handle things without assistance. Though to be fair he probably wouldn’t have survived that time with the kelpie without his reactionary casting that had inexplicably put the inky black water horse under a spell that made it perfectly agreeable to any and all of Stiles’ suggestions, including letting him ride on the not-horse’s back so he could scour the other side of the river for that damned enchanted rock.

And, really, that kind of spell wouldn’t be the worst for Jackson to fall under, but Stiles knew better than to actively try to cast something like that because using magic to compromise someone’s free agency was super skeevy and morally wrong and going down a path Stiles knew he didn’t want to tread.

Even if Jackson seemed perfectly willing to use  _ his  _ agency to publicly beat Stiles’ face in.

“Um,” Stiles responded, since Derek was watching him expectantly. “Thanks? For that. I guess,” he said, not sounding nearly as grateful as Derek apparently thought he should be, judging by his confused expression.

“Look, if you’re upset with me for having stepped in-”

“No, no, it’s not that,” Stiles interrupted, though it kind of  _ was  _ that, if not for the reason Derek probably thought. Stiles had next to no pride or anything of the kind. He knew he couldn’t take Jackson in a fair fight. He was more concerned that the punishment had been postponed, thus allowing Jackson time to stew and maybe even plot out a more complex form of retribution than the typical fist meets face scenario, which would in turn open Stiles up to more spontaneous casting, and since he still hadn’t gotten complete control over his magic that likely wouldn’t have a very pleasant outcome for either of them. But Derek had helped him out, so he sighed, “I just. You’re right. Thanks for stopping him.”

Not that it would do Stiles much good in the long run, but it had been a nice gesture.

Derek was still giving him that same considering look, but then the bell rang and Harris began his lecture, so Stiles turned to the front lest he get in trouble for perceived inattentiveness.

At his feet, Stiles could feel Nyx wend his way around the bottom of the stool and his ankles like he wanted to be picked up, but with Derek so close Stiles wasn’t sure he should risk it. Nyx, however, took the choice out of his hands and began climbing up his pant leg, tiny claws pin-sharp as they inevitably caught his skin.

Stiles twitched at the pain, but kept his mouth shut as Nyx began the slow, laborious process of puncturing an inordinate amount of tiny holes into Stiles’ jeans during his little climbing adventure.

He was vaguely aware of Derek lifting his chin and inhaling a few times, like he smelled something strange, but then Harris was giving them instructions on how to do a worksheet he was passing out and Nyx finally made it to Stiles’ lap, immediately settling with a single muted purr.

Stiles breathed out in relief and took the paper that had been passed back to him, diving into the work so he wouldn’t have to interact with Derek again.

At least not until they had to swap papers so they could grade each other's work. 

“You’re acting strange, today,” Derek said quietly. They were supposed to have been discussing the answers to the questions, but they’d both aced it.

Stiles side-eyed him. “How would you know I’m acting strange? It’s not like you have much of a baseline for my normal behavior, right? I mean, we’d barely even spoken until this class. This could be how I always act.”

Derek actually looked mildly offended, of all things.

“This is our third year of school together,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Of course I can recognize when you’re acting all,” he made a vague hand gesture, “cagey.”

“Cagey?” Stiles asked, incredulous. “I’m not acting  _ cagey- _ ”

“Mr. Stilinski, is there a problem?” Mr. Harris asked from directly behind him and Stiles couldn’t fight a wince. He’d actually tried  _ not  _ to piss off his chemistry teacher, but the guy seemed to have it out for him, anyway.

“I was just asking him about number six,” Derek said smoothly, tapping his finger on the question. “Stiles was explaining it to me.”

Harris gave them both a withering look, but moved on to harass another pair. Or to reluctantly praise Lydia Martin, as the case may be.

“Okay, definitely thanks for that,” Stiles said under his breath, looking down at the invisible warmth of his familiar, who seemed to have fallen asleep on his lap. He almost moved to pet Nyx before remembering his presence was very much supposed to be a secret.

Beside him Derek shifted in his seat. “You’re welcome,” he said with obvious reluctance.

Stiles opened his mouth to reply when he felt the familiar burn of magic on his forearm, just below the crook of his elbow. He jolted at the sensation, slapping a reactionary hand onto his hoodie sleeve over what he knew was a sudden glowing circle of runes that would stay activated and achy until he’d read and deciphered Deaton’s emergency message.

Because Deaton only ever issued a summons like that when something terrible was in the process of going down, like when the preserve’s resident gorgon had tried to capture one of the dryads by the lake right before the spring solstice. 

_ That  _ had been terrible.

And pungent. 

It also meant Stiles needed to get out of class as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, Mr. Harris never even let him so much as go to the bathroom, so convincing him that Stiles should be allowed out of his sight wasn’t likely to happen.

Stiles knew he could always have his dad call the office with some kind of an excuse, but he was short on time, the pulsing of the summons insistent and unpleasantly hot against his skin, making him twitch in his seat.

When Stiles happened to glance sideways he found that Derek was frowning at him, but he really didn’t have the time or energy to explain away his weird behavior because he couldn’t shake the feeling that Deaton was in trouble, that Stiles was needed and he didn’t know how to get out of class without potentially screwing himself over-

“You’re bleeding,” Derek hissed as wet warmth bloomed across Stiles’ top lip. Thick drops of blood pattered onto the sleeve of his hoodie over the mark before he brought a hand up to his nose to try to staunch the flow.

And  _ that  _ was actually a pretty good excuse to get out of class.

Stiles silently thanked his magic for once again saving his ass as he got to his feet, feeling Nyx leap off his lap just before he would have been dumped on the floor, and then with a quick dismissal from Mr. Harris, found himself home free.

Sort of.

He bolted out of the first side door he came across, wiping the remnants of blood from his face with his already soiled sleeve, and made it to his jeep before anyone could question him. Luckily, the classroom he’d been in didn’t overlook the parking lot he’d used, so Stiles didn’t even have to worry about Harris catching him in the act. Well, not until he failed to come back, at least.

It wasn’t until he was a few streets away from the high school that he slowed down and rucked up his hoodie sleeve to check the rune. He swore at what he saw, the marking glowing a warning red, dancing with urgency and the location of an apparent border breach of the preserve. It was near the marker he’d had to fix during his and Deaton’s patrol, which was an alarming correlation, but in the preserve that could literally mean anything from irate pixies to invading harpies to the mundanity of illegal hunting. 

Regardless, Stiles pulled back onto the road and dialed his dad’s number, putting it on speaker as he drove through the mostly empty suburban streets.

“Stiles, this had better not be-”

“Dad,” he interrupted quickly, “something’s come up, I need you to cover for me.”

Which was a code they’d come up with regarding last-minute magical emergencies. Because both of them knew better than to get into specifics about anything like that, not over the phone, at least.

“I kinda gave myself a nosebleed in Harris’ class-”

“Jesus, kid, did you punch yourself or something?”

Stiles couldn’t help the slightly hysterical giggle that welled up in this throat, but covered it with a fake cough. “No, Dad, I just. Well, you know how it is. So, yeah. Nosebleed. That’s my cover.”

“I’ll call it in,” his dad said tiredly with a side of  _ we’ll talk about this later _ .

“Thanks, I’ve gotta go, but I’ll try to keep in touch.”

The sheriff sighed, but grumbled an affirmative before he hung up.

Stiles bit his lip as he took one of the side streets that led to the county road nearest to the border breach. Beside him Nyx meowed and Stiles glanced around for a confused second before he remembered the cloaking spell.

“Sorry, buddy,” he said snapping his fingers and then Nyx was there, sitting primly on the passenger seat, glaring balefully at Stiles.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry you have to be invisible at school and that I don’t pet you very much when we’re there,” he babbled, his pent-up nervous energy coming out of his mouth like it normally did because Stiles couldn’t help himself, sometimes. “But something’s come up and we’re going to the woods to help Deaton out. One of the preserve’s border runes was compromised or activated or something and it seems pretty urgent, actually. So, yeah, maybe stay by me or behind me while we look into this, okay?”

Nyx yawned at him.

“Okay,” Stiles said, tightening his grip on the steering wheel as the pavement gave way to gravel. “Then just try not to get hurt? Please? I know as my familiar you’re kind of indestructible, but that thing that happened on Monday was a pretty close call and I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Finally, Nyx seemed to give a reluctant nod, though it could have just been his head bobbing because of the giant ruts in the ill maintained forestry road they were bouncing down.

Still, it was kind of comforting.

What was  _ less  _ than comforting was the way the rune on his arm flared red  _ again _ , indicating a second breach. Stiles hissed as he glanced down briefly, noting that the location was only about a quarter of a mile away from the first marker. It looked to be the same one he’d found severed that Sunday, making him wonder what the hell was going on in the preserve on what should have been a normal fall day. And how the hell the Nemeton wasn’t doing its part to keep out the riffraff. 

As far as he knew there weren’t any migrations or matings set to occur. Nymphs tended to congregate in the spring while some of the more sentient beings, like the Brownies, were either already inside the preserve or tended to avoid it altogether. The only immediate explanation he could come up with was the encroachment of an outside entity or entities. 

He just hoped Deaton beat him there so he could tell Stiles what to do.

Because otherwise-

Stiles took a calming breath and focused on the road. 

Otherwise, it would be up to him to figure things out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stiles' life is a never-ending series of awkward moments.


	6. Border

The walk from where he’d been forced to park the jeep to the first activated marker was a long one, made more difficult by the oversized robe Deaton made him keep in his vehicle at all times. It was traditional druid apprentice’s garb, apparently. Beneath the scratchy wool Stiles was shirtless, of course, his chest quickly painted with a few standard protective runes he could do in his sleep. He still wore his jeans and shoes, thankfully, but the cold wind stung his face despite it being tucked beneath the large hood and the cowl he’d laboriously sewn into the collar when Deaton had first given it to him with instructions to add something to obscure his features as well as any additional protection runes as he saw fit.

Stiles had gone with the half-mask because he knew he had a pretty distinctive look, with his slightly upturned nose and big mouth.

His dad had not been amused when he’d first seen Stiles’ get-up, even if he’d been reluctantly impressed by his son’s new-found sewing skills.

But the mask was a way for him to protect his identity and the thick wool was well suited to keep out the chill from the cold snap they had going on. The dozens of runes Stiles had painstakingly embroidered into the underside of the fabric were also comforting, but he really hoped he didn’t need to activate any of them. Because that would mean he was in yet another negotiation gone wrong.

Stiles was apparently the first one to the marker and stopped short when he saw three parallel lines sliced deeply into the rune. The markings looked similar to the cuts he’d found during his border run with Deaton and the thought made his brow furrow because that had been days ago and at the time the damage hadn’t triggered any kind of an alarm.

Before he could put his palm against the wood to see if there was a way to figure out what had happened, a solid weight slammed against his back, pinning him face-first against the rough bark of the tree.

“Fu-” he began before an angry hiss sounded from somewhere near his feet and his assailant abruptly rocked back just far enough for Stiles to slip free and stumble to the side so he could at least get a good look at the person he was about to cast upon.

Only to stop short because it was  _ Laura Hale _ , Derek’s older sister.

“What the hell?” he asked. Nyx and Laura were glaring at each other, the cat’s hackles raised while she had claws coming from the tips of her fingers, fangs bared, and suddenly all of the little hints and observations he’d made over the years finally slotted into place.

“Wait, you’re a  _ werewolf _ ?” he asked, finally drawing her attention once again. She glared at him for a long second before snorting. 

“Obviously, but what the fuck are you supposed to be?” she asked, her fangs snicking up to reveal her normal-looking teeth, though she kept her claws out. “You shouldn’t be out here, Stiles, it’s dangerous-”

“I’m Deaton’s apprentice,” he interrupted, banking on Laura being aware of the druid’s identity. Plus, Stiles knew he needed to start sorting out what the hell was going on because the proximity alert and damage were by no means explained by Laura’s presence, not unless  _ she’d  _ sliced up the trees, which didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense. 

The alert seemed to indicate that not only had the border been compromised, but that whoever had cut into the rune was still within the boundary line, which Laura was on the other side of. Stiles also had the vague kind of thought that Derek might be a werewolf as well, but had much bigger things to worry about. 

Because yeah, all of the pieces added up to indicate someone harboring destructive tendencies was loose within the preserve and was intending to cause trouble.

“Well, Deaton’s not here, so what are you going to do about that?” she asked curtly, waving a clawed hand toward the sliced up rune.

Stiles shook his head and moved closer so he could survey the damage. “I saw something similar on Sunday. A few runes down,” he said, gesturing toward where it had been. “Couldn’t make heads or tails of it, then, but it seems intentional. Especially since it’s happened twice in the last twenty or so minutes.”

When he looked over at her, Laura had her head tilted back, scenting the air with a frown. Whatever she smelled made her scowl, an angry-sounding growl rumbling from her chest as her face began to transform, her brow thickening as fur sprouted along the sides of her jaw, the tips of her ears lengthening into points.

“Hunters,” she spat, then took off running into the preserve.

The rune on Stiles’ arm didn’t give any extra warning as she crossed the line, so yeah, she definitely wasn’t the trouble-maker.

“Nice chat,” Stiles muttered after her, then got to work trying to repair the rune.

 

\--------------

 

Nyx headbutted his calf just as he was finishing repairing the last of the delicate line work, the rune pulsed a deep yellow as it slowly healed from the damage. Stiles couldn’t look away to see what his familiar wanted, though, not unless he was willing to start over from scratch, so he bit his lip, hoping that he wouldn’t be assaulted again, and finally connected the last few threads.

The rune flared a happy green before fading back into the bark of the tree about a foot lower from where the lines marred the wood.

“Good work,” Deaton commented from directly behind him and Stiles barely kept from flailing as he turned to face his mentor, who was likewise decked out in protective robes, though his were dark red instead of brown and he didn’t have the same kind of facial mask sewn onto his since he didn’t really need it. Deaton could probably erase people’s memories of him with a gesture, after all. That or obscure their perception of him to the point of making their recall of whatever situation they’d seen him in wholly unreliable. 

Because druids were freaky like that.

“Though in the future,” Deaton continued dryly, “I would encourage you to set up a small protective perimeter around yourself should you need to perform magic or a ritual requiring your full attention. Anyone could have snuck up on you and attacked.”

Stiles snorted unhappily. “Yeah, that already kinda happened with Laura Hale. You know you could have told me the Hales are werewolves, right? Or at least that some of them are.”

Deaton spread his hands in an almost-shrug. “It is not my place to reveal the secrets I’ve been entrusted with. Now, what do you believe is going on here? What impression did you get from this rune and the other you repaired during our run?”

“I uh, I don’t think whoever did it was a friendly, if that’s what you mean,” Stiles said slowly. It was hard to gauge his mentor’s expression, but he thought Deaton might have been intrigued by his assessment of the facts, so he kept going. 

“I mean, these runes were targeted deliberately, right? The cuts completely severed them, but I don’t see any other marks on the trees around here. Also, when Laura came up and saw them she looked totally pissed, so it wasn’t her or probably anyone else in her pack, especially since she mentioned something about hunters. 

“Besides, if they’d been done by something like werewolf claws there would have been some kind of residual impression left behind by the skin to rune transfer, but there’s nothing here like that and there wasn’t anything on Sunday, either. Whoever did this made it  _ look  _ like claw marks, but they were  _ really  _ done with a blade of some sort. Right?”

Deaton inclined his head, as close to an enthusiastic affirmative as he ever got.

“So,” Stiles continued, “that means there are probably people inside the preserve right now that harbor ill will toward at least some of the inhabitants, since they felt the need to announce their presence so aggressively instead of just allowing the runes to activate like they normally would upon a border breach. Either way they had to have known that their actions wouldn’t yield any significant harm to themselves, which means they know the Nemeton isn’t functioning to its full capacity. They probably knew some kind of a warning would go out, but this way-” Stiles trailed off with a shrug.

Once again, Deaton made a tiny gesture of agreement.

But Stiles didn’t know where to go from there.

“Well?” Stiles asked, shrugging under the heavy cloth of his robe. “What do we do, now? Laura took off after them, but it didn’t sound like she’d called for backup or anything.”

Above them, Stiles saw Irvine flit from one tree to another, his sharp eyes trained on the interior of the preserve.

“For now, we will go repair the other rune, and then we will wait for Alpha Hale’s instructions. It is their land to protect, after all,” Deaton said.

Which was just cruel.

Stiles  _ sucked  _ at waiting.

 

\---------------

 

He at least got to spend some time grilling Deaton about werewolves, but what Stiles got out of his mentor wasn’t much more than he already knew.

They tended to live in families organized as packs. There was a hierarchy with a singular alpha or alpha pair, but things weren’t as strict as Stiles has assumed- 

Those nature documentaries about wolves had  _ lied _ .

-but in addition to correcting that piece of misinformation Deaton did confirm that Laura was part of the Hale pack. They were apparently responsible for helping police the more aggressive denizens of the preserve, which actually  _ wasn’t  _ something Stiles would have guessed based on his own personal experiences dealing with the various enraged big-bads he’d encountered without any kind of werewolfy backup or assistance. 

Though, granted, the creatures in question had mostly been upset for good reason. The pixies had just lost their queen to a localized tree blight and the kelpie’s lake had flooded. Those weren’t really problems relating to any kind of outside force other than nature herself, so the wolves probably wouldn’t have done much good other than to prevent Stiles from getting chewed on by irate pixies and kicked in the chest by that kelpie. Or that thing with the gorgon, which actually might have fallen more under Hale purview than his and Deaton’s, but it  _ had  _ been close to the solstice, so they could have been preoccupied with whatever it was werewolves did to mark the occasion.

But then there were the mysterious slashes meant to look like claw marks and Laura’s comment about hunters-

Stiles wasn’t actually too keen to find out how werewolves reacted when their territory was encroached upon by apparent outsiders who came with bad intentions. He had enough to worry about without actually being involved in a firefight or whatever it was hunters yielded against werewolves. If they even knew about the local pack.

But Deaton was a druid of the preserve’s Nemeton, which meant he and Stiles, as his apprentice, had a responsibility to protect it so it could in turn protect everything else within the boundaries. Not that it had been doing a particularly good job with that, lately. Stiles had read that in some places the local human magic-wielder was more of an honorary position than an actual be-scarred posting. But the Beacon Hills’ Nemeton needed more help than most, apparently, and that meant the Hales were just more pawns added to that particular fight. A fight which wasn’t necessarily aided by the fact that Stiles still didn’t know where the hell his own particular magical talents lay.

“From Laura’s tone and the destruction of the runes, I’m guessing these aren’t normal poaching type hunters,” Stiles said as he finished repairing the second rune.

Deaton made a noise of agreement, but didn’t elaborate.

“She just sniffed the air and knew what they were,” Stiles persisted because he was nothing if not obnoxious when he wanted more information about something he deemed important.

“Certain hunters tend to concern themselves with specific types of creatures,” Deaton at last admitted. 

“Well we have a lot to choose from, so what the hell are we going to do about these assholes?” Stiles asked in alarm. He’d worked too hard and dedicated too much of his own sweat and blood to allow some douchecanoes with a speciest vendetta to wreck all of that.

“Most hunters follow a code,” Deaton continued evenly. “They hunt only those who have proven themselves dangerous to humans.”

Which didn’t exactly lift Stiles’ spirits because a number of different creatures within the preserve had taken exception to him for one mostly-understandable reason or another.

“But they’ve only ever attacked anyone when provoked,” Stiles argued.

“Which is why my pack is here to defend the preserve,” a firm voice said.

Stiles whirled around, nearly tripping over the cumbersome folds of his robe, and felt his jaw drop when he was faced with a half-dozen very intimidating-looking adults, as well as some older teenagers, one of whom was Derek.

Because that was exactly how Stiles’ awkward life worked.

The others, presumably, made up the older members of the Hale pack.

Who were just as gorgeous as Laura and Derek, but there was definitely more of an intimidation factor going on, even aside from how several of them were flashing their eyes a supernatural yellow.

The woman who had spoken stepped forward. She was tall and regal-looking and Stiles felt a tingling rush across his skin as Deaton greeted her.

“Alpha Hale,” he said, inclining his head.

“Druid Deaton,” she replied, then looked pointedly at Stiles. “And the sheriff’s boy, if I’m not mistaken.”

Stiles opened and closed his mouth, at a loss. His apprentice garb was supposed to conceal his identity from people, but apparently werewolves were more discerning than the average human.

“Stiles,” Derek said from where he’d moved forward in the small crowd until he was just behind Alpha Hale, who Stiles was fairly certain was actually Derek’s mom, but he’d never formally met Talia Hale before.

“Yes, thank you Derek,” she replied dryly, giving her son a quick censuring glance. His expression turned briefly mulish before he lowered his eyes respectfully and stepped back behind the line of powerful-looking adults.

“My apprentice and I were just repairing the damaged runes,” Deaton explained. “Laura is already within the preserve.”

“She mentioned hunters,” Stiles felt inclined to add when Deaton trailed off.

His instinct had apparently been right because several of the werewolves growled, more of their eyes flashing yellow that time, though Alpha Hale kept herself under control, and Stiles was impressed to see that Derek did as well.

“Do we have any other information for us?” she asked.

Deaton shook his head, which Stiles thought was bullshit, but he was the druid so whatever.

“Druid Deaton, if you would be so kind as to attend the Nemeton, my pack and I will track down the interlopers and see that they’re contained and questioned.”

The way Alpha Hale spoke was formal, but Stiles could hear an edge to it that made his skin continue to tingle, particularly when she mentioned the Nemeton.

“My apprentice will seal the border, once your pack is within the preserve,” Deaton said, which was actually not something Stiles had ever done before, but he pretended like it was a normal demand because he was theoretically capable of that kind of magic, studying under a druid and all.

Once his own abilities finally manifested, he would more defined limits and strengths, but being an apprentice at least gave him the ability to practice all kinds of obscure types of magic.

“Yeah, sure, cool,” Stiles said, as the werewolves ignored him and began loping off in different directions within the preserve. Deaton walked off toward the Nemeton without another word, accompanied by a smirking guy who had impressive muscles, a fashionable goatee, and wore a tight white v-neck shirt.

“I’m staying with you,” Derek said, startling Stiles who had been too focused on Deaton and the familiar way the werewolf had been walking with him to realize he wasn’t alone.

“Fuc-I mean  _ hey  _ Derek,” Stiles said, one hand automatically moving to rub against the back of his head, but the bulky hood was in the way and then Nyx abruptly lunged from where he’d been hiding behind Stiles’ legs to paw at Derek’s jeans.

“Shit, Nyx-”

“Hey, little guy, I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Derek said as he crouched down to scratch behind Nyx’s ear.

When Nyx had finally sated his cuddle-gluttony and wandered back to Stiles, Derek rose gracefully to his feet and raised an eyebrow. “Not that I wasn’t fully aware of his presence all this week at school-”

“Because you’re a werewolf,” Stiles filled in, feeling like an idiot, but also kind of elated because he hadn’t ever known someone was a werewolf before. 

Except then he had the sudden realization that werewolves likely had advanced senses which meant that yeah, Derek had probably heard or smelled Nyx all week at school despite the familiar’s invisibility, but he was also probably been well aware of  _ all kinds of things _ about Stiles that he’d really have rather kept to himself.

Like his gigantic embarrassing crush on Derek.

Could werewolves sense that kind of thing? Smell it, maybe?

Stiles wasn’t sure he actually wanted to know the answer to that.

And so he distracted himself by whirling around gracelessly and beginning what he hoped was the proper procedure to seal off the preserve.

Derek and Nyx moved until they were safely inside the border and then both stood watch as he worked.

Activating the long ring of border runes wasn’t actually too complicated despite not actually having been given real instructions. Stiles followed his instincts, pressing the palm of his left hand against the rune in front of him until it flared green, and then he rotated his palm, skin scraping against the rough bark of the pine tree, sap aggravating the tiny cuts as he kept twisting his hand until his fingertips were facing the ground and his elbow jutted upward at an awkward angle.

The rune throbbed under his raw skin, the heat of it uncomfortable, but Stiles waited, his magic bubbling up within him as the rune finally accepted the change and flared a bright white.

Stiles could feel the other runes on either side activate as well and he closed his eyes against the tingling sensation as it spread further and further, circling the preserve until the entire border was sealed.

He thought he could feel the faintest echo of that power at the center, were the Nemeton was rooted, but the sensation was so weak Stiles couldn’t be certain.

With ginger movements he carefully peeled his hand from the tree and grimaced at the blood weeping from the many tiny cuts across his palm.

“Here, let me help,” Derek said, and held out his hand.

Nyx butted his head against Stiles’ calf and let out a supportive-sounding  _ mrrr _ .

“Yeah, okay,” Stiles said faintly, a bit lightheaded from the casting. 

He’d never done something like that before. Nothing that had taken that much power, at least, and found the buzzing sensation under his skin to be quite a rush, even if he also kind of felt like he needed to sit down and take a very long nap.

Derek wrapped warm fingers around the bare skin of his left wrist with what Stiles would have previously considered exaggerated gentleness, but in light of the whole werewolf revelation-

_ Holy shit _ .

-it made sense that he’d be cautious with a very human person who didn’t have what Stiles assumed was a super-healing factor. Because if werewolves were capable of shifting at all, they would need to be able to heal the damage they dealt themselves much faster than a typical human. Either that or be laid up in bed after every full moon, encased in casts.

“One day you’re going to tell me all about the whole werewolf thing,” Stiles said, gesturing toward Derek’s everything with his unbloodied hand.

Derek huffed out a soft breath, his version of a rueful snort, Stiles had discovered, and pressed the fingertips of one hand to the inside of Stiles’ wrist while the other hand cradled the bulky fabric of his robe, just under his elbow.

Derek closed his gorgeous blue-no green-no hazel eyes, and before Stiles could start babbling again he felt the strangest sensation, like the throbbing pain was starting to leak out of him.

Which was apparently exactly what was happening because he could see tiny rivulets of dark gray begin to ebb across the hand Derek was using to hold onto Stiles’ wrist, the veins nearly black where they were touching, and growing lighter as they pulsed up Derek’s forearm.

As Stiles watched the darker streaks began to lighten until the skin went back to its normal tan and then they were just kind of holding hands.

“I, um,” Stiles began, honestly speechless because the pain was gone even though a few of the scrapes were still leaking drops of blood. It certainly wasn’t typical first aid, but he’d take what he could get while essentially trapped within the preserve until the conclusion of whatever issue was going on with the hunters and the Hales and his own mentor.

Finally dredging up manners from somewhere, Stiles grinned at Derek from behind the mask.

“Thanks, that’s pretty incredible,” he said, and had the distinct pleasure of seeing Derek’s ears pink with the compliment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go...


	7. Ignite

They were roughly a mile or so into the preserve when Derek suddenly spoke up.

“I thought you were being abused, at first,” he said evenly.

Stiles whirled to face him, his robe fanning out ridiculously before he could get it back under control. “You what?” he asked, incredulous. He’d dropped the mask shortly after they’d started their hike and was perfectly aware of how silly he probably looked, mouth gaping as he stared.

Derek just shrugged in response. “I thought your dad or someone was abusing you, and that’s why you had so many bruises and scars,” he said casually. “I asked my mother about it, to see what she thought should be done. I mean, it’s not exactly unheard of, police hurting their own kids. A lot of law enforcement officers experienced corporal punishment when they were children, and people often follow the same kinds of patterns when raising their own-”

“My dad’s never laid a hand on me,” Stiles said, sounding strangled, but it was absolutely true. The sheriff was too much of a fan of giving lectures, probably aware that Stiles could hardly stand it when he did, which had always made his punishments seem terrible, the grinding inevitability of the long, drawn out discussion of his mistakes and their potential or realized consequences.

“I know that now, but I didn’t, then,” Derek said. “I first suspected it when you were acting so strangely when I came to your house, but it really wasn’t until I saw the bruises across your shoulders-”

“Work-related, I assure you,” Stiles interrupted, glancing over at Nyx, who ignored him.

Derek shrugged again. “That’s what my mother thought. She asked a bunch of questions about where I’d met you on Sunday and why you were in the woods, but I think that was more for her to figure out if  _ I  _ knew anything about your magic. She’s probably known about your connection with Deaton since you started apprenticing with him.”

Which was news to Stiles.

“Wait, so that means your mom’s the Hale pack alpha, right?” he asked. He’d assumed as much, but independent confirmation was always preferable to mere speculation.

Derek hesitated.

“We’re not really supposed to-”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Stiles interrupted with a grin. “You keep my secret, I keep yours. So, I mean, obviously you’re a werewolf like your mom and sister because of that pain-drain thing. Which, is really amazing, by the way.”

Derek rolled his eyes good naturedly. “Yes, Stiles, I’m a werewolf like my mother and Laura. Cora is, too, and so are most of our other family members.”

Implying that some weren’t, which was intriguing. Stiles knew a bit about werewolves, but not nearly enough to understand if that was common or not, having a mixed pack composed of both wolves and, he assumed, humans.

Unless  _ were _ -ness could manifest in a non-wolf manner. In which case were _ creature _ was possibly more of a preferred classification title over were _ wolf _ , but Derek hadn’t mentioned that, so Stiles was left to wonder.

Despite the additional questions the revelation had prompted, Stiles found himself nodding at the new information Derek had revealed and felt obligated to share a bit of his own because while Deaton might love keeping everything mysterious and vague nine times out of ten, Stiles preferred to just lay it all out there and actually communicate with other people. 

“That’s cool,” he said, pointed looking ahead into the shadowed forest so he wouldn’t have to see Derek’s reaction. “My dad’s not like me, in case you were wondering, but my mom was. I mean, she was an enchantress, which is a magic-human type. I haven’t quite figured out my own brand of awesome, yet, so I don’t know, I could be an enchanter like her or a druid like Deaton or like neither of them.”

And saying it outloud was a bit freeing, even if the ever present undercurrent of frustration was there, haunting him with his inability to get a proper magical diagnosis, and with it a better grasp of how his power would work and evolve.

“It’s weird because there’s a whole set of ways magic can present in humans, but there’s no hereditary link between them beyond baseline ability. I could be a magician or a mage or a mystic, or something that doesn’t even start with the letter M because there really are quite a few options. So, yeah, I could end up being anything, really, but my mom was an enchantress before she died of an illness totally unrelated to all this. She probably would have helped me like Deaton does, but my powers didn’t manifest until after she’d died.”

Right after, as it happened. But that was an entirely different mess of stuff Stiles didn’t ever want to talk about with anyone. Not even with his dad, who had suddenly been widowed and at the same time burdened with an uncontrolled magic-wielding kid with ADHD and abandonment issues.

Those had been some dark days. Also days filled with random fires and accidental levitations.

Derek had a pinched kind of expression when Stiles finally forced himself to glance over, but he ignored the look because that’s how he got through a majority of the shitty things that had happened to him. He plowed through the aftermath and the reminders as best he could and hoped others were willing to play along, too.

Thankfully, Derek seemed game for that approach, too, because he changed the subject, inquiring about their chemistry project and Stiles’ progress on his part of it. Occasionally he even dropped little tidbits about his own life as a werewolf.

Which.

Actually sounded pretty awesome.

Pack hunts and full moon runs, huge family gatherings and a kind of connectivity with each other that Stiles couldn’t quite conceptualize, having only really known his dad and mom, when she’d been alive. The Hale family sounded huge and like the fun kind of chaotic.

“There’s been something going on lately, though,” Derek was saying. “My parents and aunts and uncles and the other adults have been having attending a lot of meetings away from the house. Normally we all meet together, everyone in the pack including the kids, but that’s not been what’s happening.”

“Like that night when Nyx was sick,” Stiles said, remembering the absence of authority figures aside from Grandma Hale.

“Yeah, then and last night as well. No one has said anything, but I don’t think they were very surprised when Deaton sent the message about the intruders.”

Which was news to Stiles, but many things were when it came to his mentor.

The speculated about it for another mile or so, neither of them having much more in the way of answers, before they reached one of the small creeks that split off from the lake.

“Eh, crap,” Stiles said, rocking to a halt. His hand was throbbing again-

Werewolf pain-drain powers must have a time limit.

-and he wanted nothing more than to swirl it around in the undoubtedly icy cold water, but he didn’t. 

_ Couldn’t _ . 

“I’m going to find a dry crossing,” Stiles said, resigned, “but you can go ahead if you want. I know you probably want to be with your pack and I’m all good. I can take care of myself.”

The creek, though relatively small and shallow, was still about eight feet across. There was no possible way he’d be able to jump that. Not if he wanted to avoid getting wet. Which he very much did.

Derek’s dark brows quirked in confusion. “It’s pretty shallow here. We could wade across. Unless you’re you afraid of the water, or-”

“Oh, no. I’m  _ not _ afraid-”

Derek snorted at that, and Stiles came to the suddenly conclusion that werewolves really could somehow identify when people lied.

Which would have been slightly mortifying if Stiles had had any dignity left.

“Ugh, fine. Stop lie detecting me. It’s just that I’m not allowed to touch any water in the preserve that feeds into or comes out of the lake. Which, as you can imagine, is most of it. So yeah, you can go help out your pack. Whatever. But me? I’m going to go that way until I hit a crossing that’s not going to get me into trouble.”

Stiles turned upstream, there was a fallen log about ten minute’s walk from where they were standing, but Derek reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Why can’t you touch the water? What happens?” he asked, sounding more concerned than Stiles felt was actually warranted, but whatever, Derek seemed to be weird about some things.

Also, Stiles was maybe kind of swooning inside, having his crush express that kind of emotion about his wellbeing, but he quashed that very unproductive line of thought because yeah, Derek was a werewolf, and Stiles didn’t quite know what all that entailed sense-wise.

Could Derek smell the crush Stiles had on him?

Could he hear the uptick in Stiles’ pulse when he was around and looking amazingly attractive?

Because if either of those were the case Stiles might actually die of embarrassment, forget the vengeful kelpie.

Stiles cleared his throat and tried to remember what it was they were talking about.

“It was a deal I made with a kelpie, don’t worry about it,” Stiles finally replied, trying to keep still under the weight of Derek’s hand, warm even through the layer of Stiles’ robe.

Derek’s brow furrowed. “You mean  _ you  _ were the one that stopped the spring flooding?” he asked and Stiles would have been a bit offended by his incredulous tone if he hadn’t been equally as stunned by his own abilities.

“Yep, that was me. But yeah, I had to do some kinda icky things with my magic to make that happen, and that I don’t want to talk about so now the kelpie and I steer clear of each other.” Which was really the least Stiles could do after having basically enthralled the poor creature. Though it had thankfully worked out in the end.

“My mother was impressed,” Derek said, also sounding impressed even though Stiles certainly hadn’t done it for the recognition. He’d been more concerned about keeping himself alive and undrowned and or trampled at the time. “She said that Deaton has had to intervene a number of times over the years when the kelpie wandered from its home, and that what you did helped it feel like it no longer had to go in search of more territory to claim.”

Which wasn’t actually something Stiles had known.

“Huh, I guess everyone needs clearly defined boundaries.”

“The creek’s not very wide right here,” Derek said, dropping his hand from Stiles’ shoulder and gesturing toward the water. Tips of his ears were pink again. “I could, I could help you get across, if you want.”

Stiles didn’t really know what to think about that.

“Are you planning to toss me, or-”

Derek shot him a startled look and rapidly shook his head, his dark hair ruffling adorably with the movement. “No, of course not, I’d carry you. On my back,” he amended quickly, ears nearly red with apparent embarrassment.

Stiles had to force down the images in his mind of having Derek’s strong arms around him as he carried Stiles’ bridal-style across the watery threshold. Piggyback rides were much more manageable, he decided.

“Uh, okay, that’s cool,” he said. He didn’t relish going nearly a mile out of his way just to avoid getting his boots wet or risk breaking the agreement he’d forged with the kelpie. That thing kicked way too hard for Stiles to be okay with going another round. Even with the protection of his rune-embroidered robe, Stiles’ ribs had been bruised for weeks after his previous encounter with it.

Derek seemed surprised with his easy acquiescence, but quickly crouched down so Stiles could awkwardly clambered onto his back, the hard planes of his muscles tense between Stiles’ knees and under his palms.

“Nyx,” he called over his shoulder and the cat leapt gracefully into Derek’s arms like they were the best bros in the world.

And when Stiles actually stopped to consider it, they kind of were, despite Nyx being Stiles’ familiar.

Maybe it was a werewolf/familiar thing?

Derek shifted his weight, like he was checking to make sure Stiles wouldn’t fall off, then in a superhuman bolt of speed, had them airborne over the creek and on the other side in the span of a heartbeat.

Or about a hundred of Stiles’ heartbeats since it felt like that was how fast his pulse was racing, but whatever, he’d gotten over the water without having incurred the wrath of the kelpie. He’d take it.

“Dude, that was pretty cool,” he decided as he slipped off Derek’s back and onto suddenly wobbly legs. Stiles hadn’t ever been one for extreme acts of adrenaline junky-like behavior, and it seemed like werewolf riding fit perfectly into that category.

Derek turned to him, Nyx still seemingly perfectly content chilling out in his muscular arms, which Stiles wasn’t thinking about because that wasn’t a productive line of thought.

“Uh, so yeah, we should,” he continued, gesturing in the direction they needed to walk in order to get to the giant Nemeton that generated the excess of magical energy that made the preserve and Beacon Hill such a supernatural magnet. It was that flickering kind of power that Stiles had tapped into when he’d created the barrier around the preserve.

Deaton had once explained the mechanics of it, the way the Nemeton actually worked, but at the time Stiles’ had been trying to figure out how to breath without pulling on the stitches he’d gotten from the griffin attack. In the end he’d just resigned himself to shallow puffs of air, which hadn’t done his concentration any good while Deaton had prattled on about charges and magic and something about batteries, which was probably wrong, but Stiles really hadn’t had the excess brain power at the time to actually pay attention.

“Are you sure you want to keep going?” Derek asked even as he kept pace with Stiles, who had worn his ridiculous robes often enough when traversing the woods that he didn’t trip on them nearly as often as he used to. 

Stiles glanced at Derek, and Nyx still in his arms, both of them looking content and adorable and Stiles forced himself to look away before he actually started to get heart-eyes about the whole thing.

“I’m exactly where I’d like to be,” he said, feeling his cheeks get splotchy pink like they did, which wasn’t nearly as cute of a look as when Derek blushed.

Which-

Stiles glanced over at him.

-he was doing at that moment.

Nyx took the opportunity to wriggle around in Derek’s arms so he could put both paws on one of his shoulders and mush his furry cheek against Derek’s, his thready purr audible despite the woodland noises and the sound of them walking over crunchy deadfall.

“Me, too,” Derek murmured against the black of Nyx’s flank.

Stiles almost tripped over an exposed root, but managed to turn the movement into a semi-controlled flail, grinning the entire time.

 

\--------------------

 

Derek grabbed ahold of the back of Stiles’ robe when they were still a few minutes’ walk from the Nemeton.

“There’s fighting,” he warned, impressive dark brows furrowed as he stared off in the direction they were heading.

Stiles flexed his wounded hand and tried to think about what Deaton would want him to do.

At their feet, Nyx was wending his way under and around Stiles’ robe, now that he was standing still, displaying a kind of restlessness Stiles could definitely relate to.

The thunderclap of a large caliber discharge made him flinch, and immediately on the heels of that reflex Stiles couldn’t help but think about just how many denizens of the preserve could be taken down by a bullet of that size.

Derek’s grip loosened and in that moment Nyx darted forward, plunging into the underbrush in the direction of the Nemeton.

Stiles swore and took off after him, the memory of his familiar’s near-death too near for him to do anything else.

Beside him, Stiles was aware of Derek keeping pace, probably much more easily than Stiles and his robes, but they were moving too quickly to chat about it or really do anything other than run past the reaching branches and scraping bushes that tried to tangle around Stiles’ legs.

Thankfully, Stiles had a lot of experience not allowing the preserve trap him, so the attempts to stall him barely slowed his pace. He even somehow had the presence of mind to raise his mask as he ran, the hood shadowing his eyes from the flickering light that filtered through the bare trees.

Derek seemed well practiced in traversing the preserve as well, though he had claws to help him when a particular piece of flora proved too cumbersome to dodge.

There was another thunderclap as well as a howl, and then the ground seemed to let out a groan before trembling briefly.

Stiles rocked to a halt, Derek and Nyx at his side. They were just outside the massive clearing where the Nemeton was rooted, but even without being able to see through the last piece of thicket, Stiles knew something was horribly wrong with the giant tree.

The knowledge itched inside of him even as Derek’s brows wrinkled, his expression contorted as he narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to focus on whatever it was that was happening between the Hales and the intruders, but Stiles was too wrapped up in the knowledge that the Nemeton must have been deeply wounded, for the earth to respond the way it had.

“My pack is fighting the hunters,” Derek said. “They’re still in the forest, using the trees as cover, but they’re moving toward the clearing and should be here momentarily. My Uncle Peter’s been shot, but we have the right strain of wolfsbane to cure him.”

“What about Deaton?” Stiles asked.

“Deaton’s at the Nemeton, but it isn’t responding to him,” Derek relayed. “He says you’re to stay away. The magic’s too unstable for an apprentice to handle.” 

Stiles huffed in disagreement, but moved cautiously forward until he could see through the last of the underbrush.

Deaton’s back was to them, both of his hands pressed against the gnarled bark of the Nemeton, which curved overhead like a mushroom cloud. It was one tree that wasn’t supposed to abide by the seasons, but Stiles could see mottled brown patches amongst the green. It wasn’t supposed to lose it’s leaves, either, but the branches nearest the ground were bare.

The Nemeton was dying.

Stiles hadn’t ever realized that, before, but suddenly so many of the events that had transpired during his apprenticeship made sense; why there had been so many conflicts over the years, the way the Nemeton’s power had seemed to tremble and wane, and how the Hales hadn’t been able to keep out the riffraff, either. The instability of the tree’s magic had thrown the entire supernatural ecosystem of the preserve into chaos.

And Deaton was telling him to stay away.

“Nope,” Stiles said as he adjusted the cowl and mask, then nodded to Nyx, who blinked once in response before darting forward into the clearing, leaping over the exposed roots of the Nemeton that curved out from the ground even that far out from the massive trunk of the tree.

Derek made an aborted grab for Stiles’ robes, but he was already sprinting, his latent magic bursting under his skin as he rushed forward toward his mentor.

Overhead Irvine wheeled on an unseen breeze for one glorious moment before feathers burst from one wing on the heels of another thunderclap. 

He was plummeting toward the earth like a dropped stone.

Stiles was shouting as Deaton turned, his eyes wide with shock like Stiles hadn’t ever seen before.

Vaguely, he was aware of Derek finally getting it together enough to follow, of an actual wolf off to one side lunging for a man holding a rifle, of Irvine’s descent.

But it was the Nemeton that called to him.

Stiles hadn’t ever been so close to it before when he’d been embracing his magic and thought he might be able to actually see the tree’s pulse, the thready beat of magic that tenuously held everything in the preserve together.

His mother’s heartbeat had been like that, in the end, but unlike ten-year-old Stiles, his seventeen-year-old self was in full possession of his magic. 

He wasn’t going to let this pulse stop.

Nyx was only able to give a sharp yowl of warning before something slammed into Stiles’ back, tackling him to the ground in a move that temporarily stole his breath. The weight continued to press against his back as something hard came up against the bottom of his mask, just over his throat.

Directly in front of him, Deaton was cradling Irvine against his chest, the familiar’s bright golden feathers juxtaposed with the dark brown of his robe. But Irvine was at least moving, even if he looked a bit dazed from the impact.

Nyx was nowhere in sight.

Stiles wanted to move, to see what had happened to his own familiar, but the person holding him down tsked.

“Now, now,” a woman said, her voice was harsh as she pressed the knife more firmly against Stiles’ throat. It didn’t take much of an imagination to realize she was likely used to delivering cruelties.

“I caught the apprentice,” she said, loudly enough to echo through the clearing.

Stiles closed his eyes and tried to focus on his magic, to separate himself from the way he was being pulled toward the Nemeton despite the actual threat to his life, but it was quivering with the rest of him. He clenched his fists against the earth, thankful for the burst of pain from his scraped palm that finally allowed him to focus.

“What was your plan?” he asked, trying to buy time for Deaton to get out of the way, for the wolves to hopefully defeat the hunters, for Derek to get Nyx to the safety of the treeline.

Any of it, really.

The knife twitched before steadying and the woman huffed out a laugh he could feel where she was pressed against his back. The runes he’d stitched into the cloak were for protection against magic-wielders and supernaturals, he realized with an icy wash of dread. They wouldn’t keep him from being harmed by a normal human.

“A  _ boy _ apprentice,” she said, her voice a purr that made the tiny hairs on the back of Stiles’ neck rise.

In one smooth movement she rolled him over onto his back and straddled his thighs. The hood of his cloak bunched up underneath his neck, but through some miracle the mask remained pulled over his mouth and nose. His quick, panted breaths warmed the skin of his face even as cold crept up over his scalp.

The woman was an older kind of attractive, with curling blond hair and a cruel twist to her smirk that would have put Stiles’ hair on end if he weren’t already entirely freaked out.

She wielded the knife in her hand like it was an extension of herself, and Stiles had no doubt she’d eagerly use it to stab him if she made any aggressive movements.

But he was in an indefensible position, he knew, thighs contained, arms trapped under the weight of his robes, hands weaponless.

The thought had Stiles cautiously spreading his fingers against the brittle grass. If he could grab a stick or something-

“A young boy apprentice,” the woman purred, her sharp smile somehow even more predatory than before and Stiles felt his stomach swoop sickeningly.

His right fingertips brushed against something hard and he cautiously wrapped his hand around it, but it crumbled at the pressure.

Nothing more than a clod of cold dirt.

The woman continued monologuing as the chaos around them grew louder. Men and wolves fought, women and half-shifted weres wrestled and slashed, shot and howled, but the woman straddling Stiles seemed entirely comfortable focusing solely on him, after a dismissive glance at Deaton.

“I’m sure you’re going to need a strong, firm-handed guide once we dispose of your current mentor,” she was saying, bringing Stiles’ attention back to her. “Lucky for you I know of a druid who’s all kinds of ruthless. I’m sure she’ll have you whipped into shape in no time. She might even know of a way to make you manifest.”

Which was a horrifying thought.

“Did you know there are spells that can be used to influence an apprentice’s outcome?” the woman continued. “She was telling me about it just last week. Some hunter families will pay a lot of money for specific kinds of magic-users. Not mine, of course, Argents would never pay for something we could simply take.”

Stiles’ fingers spasmed against the ground and his left hand scraped against something hard, reopening the cuts on his palm as he closed his fist around it.

But instead of a tree branch, which Stiles had planned on smashing against the woman’s skull, it was a root.

A root that pulsed weakly against his palm, the magic seeming to bleed out of it just like the blood warming his skin.

It was one of the roots of the Nemeton, quivering faintly like a dying thing.

Stiles’ magic pulsed in echo, it was the closest he’d ever been to the tree, and he could see why Deaton had warned him off from getting any nearer. Because even though the Nemeton was fading, couldn’t have been more than a shadow of its former glory, the magic Stiles felt through the root was intoxicatingly powerful as it began to mingle with his own.

The press of the woman’s knife to his throat, bared at some point he didn’t remember, brought his attention back to her.

“A cute boy apprentice,” she said, studying Stiles’ features.

Stiles opened his mouth to respond, to cast or do  _ something _ , but then claws appeared at the woman’s throat, forcing her head back in an uncomfortable-looking tilt, though she kept her own blade flush against Stiles’ skin.

“Let him go,” Derek said with a growl in his voice that resonated through Stiles’ body like the double-pulse of his and the Nemeton’s magic. A feedback loop that seemed to grow slightly stronger the longer they were connected.

From what Stiles could see, Derek’s shirt was partially shredded, stained red in places, but his skin beneath seemed to be intact and his features were settled as human instead of the hybrid werewolfy look some of the other Hales had been sporting as they fought the hunters.

The  _ Argents _ ?

_ Allison’s family _ ?

Stiles pushed the thought away as the woman smirked.

“Oh, cutie’s got a boyfriend,” the woman said, not seeming to be phased by the threat of Derek’s claws. “One small problem, wolfy. If you cut, I cut, and I bet I’m quicker than you are.”

Derek scowled, pale eyes narrowing at where her blade was pressed firmly enough to cause warmth to start trickling from Stiles’ skin, the cut so fine he couldn’t even feel it as his neck began to bleed.

The woman opened her mouth again, but then Nyx was suddenly there, his sleek body insinuating itself onto Stiles’ chest beneath the woman’s arm where she still had the blade to his throat.

“You have a familiar,” she said, smile finally flickering for the first time since she’d pinned Stiles. “That’s an unexpected development.”

Having a familiar indicated he was close to full manifestation, is what she meant. Stiles hadn’t thought of it like that before, but it seemed to rattle the woman enough that Derek could dig his claws a bit further into the meat of her throat, pindrops of blood welling up beneath the tips.

She leaned back, her own blade lifting slightly from Stiles’ skin. The three of them in a standoff.

But all the while the pulse of the Nemeton seemed to beat a bit stronger, Stiles’ palm was hot against the root despite the rest of him growing chilled from the cold seeping through the ground at his back.

In the distance there was a human scream cut off wetly and the woman’s smirky mask fell back into place, but her eyes remained hard and alert even as her neck bled beneath the points of Derek’s claws.

“I’m going to have a fun time gutting you, wolf,” she said with a smile, never taking her eyes from Stiles. “I might even make you shift first, all the way into a real wolf. Your pelt would make a good rug-”

Stiles tuned out the rest of what she was saying, his focus inextricably drawn to the alluring pull of the Nemeton’s flickering magic that seemed to respond to his own in a way he’d never felt before. It was as if the very earth were responding to him, speaking a language he’d only ever heard whispered before. The cadence grew louder with every beat of his heart until the cacophony was like a symphony playing in time with his heart.

The savage rumbling of Derek’s growl caught Stiles focus long enough for him to realize the woman had her other hand around Nyx’s throat, the familiar’s claws were digging into her wrist, but then Stiles’ attention sunk back, down through the root molten hot against his palm, further through the cold earth and away, to where the Nemeton arched overhead, blotting out the thin blue of the sky, the glow of the branches brightening with every beat.

Stiles knew he could lose himself in it, in the connection he’d unwittingly forged with the Nemeton, but his familiar was in danger and so was Derek, out in the open where any hunter could take a shot at him.

“Did you really think you could take over the preserve?” Stiles asked, drawing the woman’s attention.

“Everyone knows the protections in place are failing,” she replied easily, as if being stuck between a growling werewolf and a druid’s apprentice was exactly where she had planned to be.

Nyx had gone still in her grip, but Stiles could see the slight flare of his ribcage as he thankfully continued to breathe.

“So you thought you’d just be able to come in and take over?” Stiles asked again, bidding his time as his own magic wove together with that of the Nemeton. 

It was a slow process, apparently. Something he’d never done before, but there didn’t seem to be much conscious effort involved. It was almost like an introduction between strangers, their own brands of magic delicately entwined in a handshake used to see if they were compatible. But even from the first tentative connection, Stiles knew it would work. He was a product of that land, regardless of his mother’s own foreign roots and his father’s connections to his ancestral homeland of Poland.

Stiles was as much a part of Beacon Hills as the Nemeton.

And nothing was going to come between that bond.

“Not take over so much as capture all the little critters you’ve been harboring and sell them to the highest bidder,” the woman said with a cocky smirk.

Which was even worse than a straight takeover. The Nemeton’s magic fed off of the magic inherent in the supernatural creatures within the preserve just as they relied on the tree to keep them hale and safe. Removing too many of those supernaturals would be damning to the health and wellbeing of the entire ecosystem that hadn’t exactly been entirely stable in the first place.

“And you want me to be your connection to the Nemeton while you harvest the populace?” Stiles asked, knowing the answer before she even dipped her chin in the barest hint of a nod.

“The tree’s dying, anyway, might as well clear out the riffraff before they start migrating and disturbing humans,” she said, as if it were a suitable justification for enslaving innocent creatures, some of whom were almost as sentient as humans.

“Are you sure about that?” Derek asked, and Stiles followed his gaze, tilting his head back just enough to see the leafy canopy of the Nemeton, suddenly lush where it had been patchy, every single branch bursting with green.

Stiles could feel the woman stiffen, her thighs bracketing his quivering slightly with the movement and he knew she saw the same thing he did.

The Nemeton wasn’t dying, anymore. It was thriving.

“How-” the woman began, looking toward where Deaton had been she focused on Stiles, to where his left hand gripped the root. “You,” she snarled and raised the knife as if plunge it into that hand, but in the same moment Nyx bit down on her restraining hand, peddling his hind-legs against her bare wrist while Derek pulled her backward by the throat.

Stiles scrambled to his feet, Nyx immediately at his side. The woman slashed at Derek with her knife, quick as pixie, but he’d backed away and she was once more between them, though she didn’t look nearly as in-control as when she’d had Stiles pinned.

“It doesn’t change anything,” she said, not bothering to wipe the blood from her throat even though it was beginning to stain the collar of her jacket.

At his back, Stiles could feel the thudding pulse of the Nemeton, hearty where it had always been weak, calling to him in a way he knew he couldn’t resist. Not for long.

He moved back one step, closer to it, but the woman saw and her eyes narrowed.

She switched her grip on the knife, fingertips against the flat of the blade, and Stiles whirled around, his robe flaring as the toes of his shoes dug into the cold earth, propelling himself toward the thrumming base of the tree.

He didn’t know why, just that he was compelled, that even if the knife imbedded into his back, he had to reach the Nemeton because his work wasn’t done.

There was a distant feeling of warmth against his right side, but Stiles kept sprinting faster than he ever had, his entire consciousness focused on the bright glow in front of him.

Deaton was there, Irvine still cradled to his chest, both of them wide-eyed as they tracked Stiles’ approach.

“Complete the ritual,” Deaton called, his voice surprisingly steady despite his familiar’s brush with the bullet.

Stiles didn’t know what ritual it was he’d started, but the Nemeton seemed perfectly willing to do most of the work, using Stiles as a kind of conduit for it’s purpose.

Distantly, the sounds of fighting ramped up, almost loud enough to drown out the beat of magic, but then Stiles was there, his palms flat against the rough bark of the Nemeton and it was like he was finally awake for the first time.

Stiles’ magic, the core of his being, flared to life in his belly. The sensation warmed him and his blood sang with the invigorating sensation. It hadn’t ever been like that before, not to that extent, and Stiles felt himself smile as the Nemeton met his magic once again, echoing the magnitude of his ability and drawing it in, connecting, forging a bond between them.

“What does a spark do?” Deaton asked, his voice seeming to come directly from the Nemeton, the only way Stiles would have been able to hear him, over the humming of magic.

“A spark ignites,” Stiles heard himself say, his cheeks aching with how widely he was grinning.

He reached inside of himself for his magic, and it rushed to greet him.

 

\--------------------

 

The next thing Stiles knew, he was being carefully pulled away from the Nemeton, which had quieted at some point, though its pulse was strong and steady.

He blinked a few times, limbs heavy as he was turned, but what he was seeing was real. Dusk had fallen and the entire clearing was illuminated solely by the supernatural glow of the Nemeton’s restored magic.

When Stiles was able to focus again, he was relieved to see Derek in front of him, looking rumpled, his shirt mostly in tatters at that point, but he was there and alive and beautiful.

“You’re okay?” Stiles asked, voice unaccountably rough-sounding.

Derek’s answering smile was adorable and lovely and all kinds of positive things Stiles didn’t quite have the emotional capacity to figure out at that moment when his knees felt a bit weak from the casting and the near-death experience, but Derek was there and Nyx was winding between their feet like it was exactly where he belonged. 

Where they all belonged.

“I’m okay, and Nyx is, too,” Derek confirmed. “Deaton and his familiar are fine as well, as are the members of my pack. The hunters have been killed or captured, and the Nemeton-”

He paused then, and Stiles had to resist the urge to put his palm against the bark once more, but Derek’s warm chest was closer and really, much more appealing at the moment.

“Your magic recharged it, I think,” Derek said, the words slow as if he’d heard them from someone else, but didn’t quite get their meaning.

“A spark ignites,” Stiles said with sudden understanding. “That’s what I am. A spark. I’m not like my mother or Deaton, My magic ability is almost unlimited in the things I can do with it. I can recharge things like the Nemeton, things whose magic is fading, or I can defend like a druid, or make like a mage, or. Well, I’ll have to do some research, but sparks are pretty rare, so I think it’s going to be kind of like a choose your own adventure story.”

“I’d like to be part of your adventure,” Derek said, his voice soft. “Will you go out with me?”

There was a leaf stuck to the side of Derek’s neck and Stiles had to resist the urge to peel it off of his flushed skin.

“Well,” Stiles replied, as he gave up any pretense of not being hopelessly gone on the werewolf and leaned into Derek’s space, reveling in the warmth and the way Derek’s broad palm was pressed against his robe, low on Stiles’ side over the gash caused by the woman’s knife. There wasn’t any pain, though, so Stiles assumed Derek was taking care of that in his amazing werewolfy-magic fashion. “I guess I could be persuaded.”

Derek’s smile was enchanting, and Stiles couldn’t help but grin back as he was pulled gently into a kiss.

It wasn’t until later that he realized Derek had asked him out in Polish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, kittens!
> 
> My[Tumblr](http://ravingrevolution.tumblr.com/?hl=en)
> 
> And as always, please don't link me or any of my writing on sites like goodreads
> 
> ^_^

**Author's Note:**

> My [tumblr](http://ravingrevolution.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Please do not post about this or any of my other stories on sites like goodreads


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